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WORKS OF 


CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A. 

¥ 

Under Fire. Marion’s Faith 

The Colonel’s Daughter. Captain l 5 lake. 
Foes in Ambush. Paper, 50 cents. 

The General’s Double. 

Each volume. Illustrated. lamo. Cloth, ^1.25. 

Waring’s Peril. Trooper Galahaj 

Trials of a Staff Officer. 

Each volume. i2mo. Cloth, ^i.oo. 

Kitty’s Conquest. 

Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories. 
Laramie; or. The Queen of Bedlam. 

The Deserter, and From the Ranks. 

Two Soldiers, and Dunraven Ranch. 

A Soldier’s Secret, and An Army Portia. 
Captain Close, and Sergeant Crcesus. 

Each volume. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00; 
paper, 50 cents. 

From School to Battle-field. 

Illustrated by Violet Oakley. Crown 8vo. 
Cloth, $1.50. 

Trooper Ross, and Signal Butte. 

Illustrated by Charles S. Stephens. Crown 
8vo. Cloth, jSi.oo. 

A Tame Surrender. Ray’s Recruit. 

Each volume. Illustratec tbrno. Polished 
buckram, 75 ceni 

Edited by Captain King. 

The Colonel’s Christmas Dinner, and Other 
Stories. 

i2mo. Cloth, ^1.25; paper, 50 cents. 

An Initial Experience, and Other Stories. 
Captain Dreams, and Other Stories. 

Each volume. i2mo. Cloth, ;gi.oo; 
paper, 50 cents. 


WAKING’S 


PERIL. 


BY 

CAPT. CHARLES KING, 

U. S. ARMY, " 

AUTHOR OF “the COLONEL's DAUGHTER," FOES IN AMBUSH,'^ AN ARMY 
PORTIA," “two soldiers," “a SOLDIER's SECRET," ETC. 



> 




> 

j ) 

i 


PHILA DELPHI a: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1900 . 



5 ? 


Copyright, 1893, 

BY 

J. B. Lippincott Company. 


/C 







Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 


WAKING’S PERIL. 


OHAPTEE I. 


“ Ananias !” 

“ Ye-as, suh ?” 

What time is it ?” 

Gjahd-mountin’ done gone, suh/’ 

The devil it has ! WTiat do you mean, sir, 
by allowing me to sleep on in this shameless 
and unconscionable manner, when an indulgent 
government is suffering for my services ? Wliat 
sort of day is it, sir ?” 

“Beautiful day, Mr. Waring.” 

“ Then go at once to Mr. Larkin and tell him 
he can’t wear his new silk hat this morning, — 
want it, and you fetch it. Don’t allow him to 
ring in the old one on you. Tell him I mean 
the new ‘ spring style’ he just brought from 
'New York. Tell Mr. Ferry I want that new 
Hatfield suit of his, and you get Mr. Pierce’s 
silk umbrella; then come back here and get 

3 


4 


WARING'S PERIL. 


my bath and my coffee. Stop there, Ananias ! 
Give my pious regards to the commanding 
officer, sir, and tell him that there’s no drill for 
‘X’ Battery this morning, as I’m to breakfast 
at Moreau’s at eleven o’clock and go to the 
matinee afterwards.” 

“Beg pahdon, suh, but de cunnle’s done 
ohdered review fo’ de whole command, suh, 
right at nine o’clock.” 

“So much the better. Then Captain Cram 
must stay, and won’t need his swell team. Go 
right down to the stable and tell Jeffers I’ll 
drive at nine-thirty.” 

«But ” 

“ Xo huts, you incorrigible rascal ! I don’t 
pay you a princely salary to raise "bstacles. I 
don’t pay you at all, sir, except at rare intervals 
and in moments of mental decrepitude. Go at 
once! Allez 1 Chassez! Skoot!” 

“But, lieutenant,” says Ananias, his black 
face shining, his even white teeth all agleam, 
“Captain Cram stopped in on de way back 
from stables to say Glenco ’d sprained his foot 
and you was to ride de bay colt. Please get 
up, suh. Boots and Saddles ’ll soun’ in ten 
minutes.” 


WARING^S PERIL. 


6 


It won’t, but if it does I’ll brain the bugler. 
Tell bim so. Tell Captain Cram he’s entirely 
mistaken : I won’t ride the bay colt — nor 
Glen CO. I’m going driving, sir, with Captain 
Cram’s own team and road- wagon. Tell Mm 
so. Going in forty-five minutes by my watch. 
Where is it, sir ?” 

“It ain’t back from de jeweller’s, sub, where 
you done lef it day before yist’day; but his 
boy’s hyuh now, suh, wid de bill for las’ year. 
Wliat shall I tell him ?” 

“ Tell him to go to — quarantine. hTo ! Tell 
him the fever has broken out here again, sir, 
and not to call until ten o’clock next spring, — 
next mainspring they put in that watch. Go 
and get Mr. Merton’s watch. Tell him I’ll be 
sure to overstay in town if he doesn’t send it, 
and then I can’t take him up and introduce him 
to those ladies from Louisville to-morrow. Im- 
press that on him, sir, unless he’s gone and left 
it on his bureau, in which case impress the 
watch, — the watch, sir, in any case. 'No I Stop 
again, Ananias; not in any case, only in the gold 
hunting-case ; no other. Noyv then, vanish !” 

“But, lieutenant, ’fo’ Gawd, suh, dey’ll put 
you in arrest if you cuts drill dis time. Cunnle 
1 * 


6 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


Braxton says to Captain Cram only two days 
ago, suh, dat ” 

But here a white arm shot out from a canopy 
of mosquito-netting, and first a boot-jack, then 
a slipper, then a heavy top-hoot, came whizzing 
past the darky’s dodging head, and, finding 
expostulation vain, that faithful servitor bolted 
out in search of some ally more potent, and 
found one, though not the one he sought or 
desired, j list entering the adjoining room. 

A big fellow, too, — ^too big, in fact, to be seen 
wearing, as was the fashion in the sixties, the 
shell jacket of the light artillery. He had a 
full round body, and a full round ruddy face, 
and a little round visorless cap cocked on one 
side of a round bullet head, not very full of 
brains, perhaps, yet reputed to he fairly stocked 
with what is termed “ horse sense.” His bulky 
legs were thrust deep in long hoots, and orna- 
mented, so far as the skin-tight breeches of sky- 
blue were concerned, with a scarlet welt along 
the seam, a welt that his comrades were wont to 
say would make a white mark on his nose, so 
red and bulbous was that organ. He came 
noisily in from the broad veranda overlooking 
the parade-ground, glanced about on the dis- 


WARIN&S PERIL. 7 

array of the bachelor sitting-room, then whirled 
on Ananias. 

“Mr. Waring dressed?” 

“ITo-o, suh; jus’ woke up, suh; ain’t out o’ 
bed yit.” 

“ The lazy vagahone ! Just let me get at him 
a minute,” said the big man, tramping over to 
the door-way as though bent on invading the 
chamber beyond. But Ananias had halted 
short at sight of the intruder, and stood there 
resolutely barring the way. 

“Beg pahdon, lieutenant, hut Mr. Waring 
ain’t had his hath yit. Can I mix de lieutenant 
a cocktail, suh ?” 

“ Can you ? You black imp of Satan, why 
isn’t it ready now, sir? Sure you could have 
seen I was as dhry as a lime-kiln from the time 
I came through the gate. Hware’s the demi- 
john, you villain ?” 

“ Bein’ refilled, suh, down to de sto’, but dar’s 
a little on de sideboa’d, suh,” answered Ana- 
nias, edging over thither now that he had lured 
the invader away from the guarded door-way. 
“ Take it straight, suh, o’ wid bitters — o’ 
toddy?” 

“ Faith, I’ll answer ye as Pat did the parson ; 


8 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


Fll take it straight now, and then be drinkin’ 
the toddy while yonr honor is mixin’ the punch. 
Give me hold of it, you smudge ! and tell your 
masther it’s review,— full dress, — and it’s time 
for him to be up. Has he had his two cocktails 
yet?” 

“ The lieutenant doesn’t care fo’ any dis 
mawnin’, suh. I’ll fetch him his coffee in a 
minute. Did you see de cunnle’s oade’ly, suh ? 
He was lookin’ fo’ you a moment ago.” 

The big red man was gulping down a big 
drink of the fiery liquor at the instant. He set 
the glass back on the sideboard with unsteady 
hand and glared at Ananias suspiciansly. 

“ Is it troot’ you’re tellin’, nigger ? Hwat did 
he say was wanted ?” 

“Didn’t say, suh, but de cunnle’s in his 
office. Yawnduh comes de oade’ly, too, suh; 
guess he must have hyuhd } ou was over hyuh.” 

The result of this announcement was not un- 
expected. The big man made a leap for the 
chamber door, only to find it slammed in his 
face from the other side. 

“Hwat the devil’s the matter with your 
master this morning, Ananias? — Waring! 
Waring, I say I Let me in : the K. O.’s orderly 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


9 


is afther me, and all on account of your bring- 
ing me in at that hour last night. — Tell him Fve 
gone, Ananias. — Let me in. Waring, there’s a 
good fellow.” 

Go to blazes, Doyle !” is the unfeeling an- 
swer from the other side. “I’m bathing.” 
And a vigorous splashing follows the announce- 
ment. 

“For the Lord’s sake. Waring, let me in. 
Sure I can’t see the colonel now. If I could 
stand him off until review and inspection’s over 
and he’s had his dhrink, he’d let the whole 
thing drop; hut that blackguard of a sinthry 
has given us away. Sure I told you he would.” 

“ Then slide down the lightning-rod ! Fly 
up the chimney ! Evaporate ! Dry up and blow 
away, but get out ! You can’t come in here.” 

“ Oh, for mercy’s sake. Waring! Sure ’twas 
you that got me into the scrape. You know 
that I was dhrunk when you found me up the 
levee. You made me come down when I didn’t 
want to. Hwat did I say to the man last night, 
anyhow ?” 

“ Say to him ? Poor devil ! why, you never 
can remember after you’re drunk what you’ve 
been doing the night before. Some time it’l) 


10 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


be the death of you. You abused him like 
a pickpocket, — the sergeant of the guard and 
everybody connected with it.” 

“ Oh, murther, murther, murther !” groaned 
the poor Irishman, sitting down and covering 
his face with his hands. “ Sure they’ll court- 
martial me this time without fail, and I know it. 
For God’s sake. Waring, can’t ye let a fellow in 
and say that I’m not here ?” 

‘‘ Hyuh, dis way, lieutenant,” whispered Ana- 
nias, mysteriously. “ Slip out on de po’ch and 
into Mr. Pierce’s room. I’ll tell you when he’s 
gone.” And in a moment the huge bulk of the 
senior lieutenant of Light Battery “X” was 
being boosted through a window opening from 
the gallery into the bachelor den of the junior 
second lieutenant. Xo sooner was this done 
than the negro servant darted back, closed and 
bolted the long green Venetian blinds behind 
him, tiptoed to the bedroom door, and, softly 
tapping, called, — 

^‘Mr. Waring! Mr. Waring! get dressed 
quick as you can, suh ; I’ll lay out your uniform 
in hyuh.” 

“ I tell you, Ananias, I’m going to town, sir ; 
not to any ridiculous review- Go and get what 


WARINQ'S peril. 


11 


I ordered you. See that Fm properly dressed, 
sir, or Fll discharge you. Confound you, sir! 
there isn’t a drop of Florida water in this hath, 
and none on my bureau. Go and roh Mr. 
Pierce, — or anybody.” 

But Ananias was already gone. Darting out 
on the gallery, he took a header through the 
window of the adjoining quarters through 
which Mr. Doyle had escaped, snatched a long 
flask from the dressing-table, and was hack in 
the twinkling of an eye. 

“What became of Mr. Doyle?” asked Wa- 
ring, as he thrust a bare arm through a narrow 
aperture to receive the spoil. “Don’t let him 
get drunk ; he’s got to go to review, sir. If he 
doesn’t. Colonel Braxton may he so inconsider- 
ate as to inquire why both the lieutenants of ‘ X’ 
Battery are missing. Take good care of him 
till the review, sir, then let him go to grass ; and 
don’t you dare leave me without Florida water 
again, if you have to burglarize the whole post. 
What’s Mr. Doyle doing, sir ?” 

“ Peekin’ froo de blin’s in Mr. Pierce’s room, 
sub ; lookin’ fo’ de oade’ly. I done told him 
de cunnle was ahter him, hut he ain’t, suh,” 
chuckled A nanias. “ I fixed it all right wid de 


12 


WARING^S PERIL. 


gyalid dis mawnin’, suh. Dey won’ tell ’bout 
bis cuttin’ up las’ night. He’d forgot de whole 
t’ing, suh ; he allays does ; he never does know 
what’s happened de night befo’. He wouldn’t 
’a’ known about dis, but I told his boy Jim to 
tell him ’bout it ahter stables. I told Jim to 
sweah dat dey’d repohted it to de cunnle.” 

“Very well, Ananias ; very well, sir; you’re 
a credit to your name. How go and carry out 
my orders. Don’t forget Captain Cram’s wagon. 
Tell Jeffers to be here with it on time.” And 
the lieutenant returned to his bath without wait- 
ing for reply. 

“ Ye-as, suh,” was the subordinate answer, as 
Ananias promptly turned, and, whistling cheer- 
ily, went banging out upon the gallery and 
clattering down the open stairway to the brick- 
paved court below. Here he as promptly 
turned, and, noiseless as a cat, shot up the stair- 
way, tiptoed back into the sitting-room, kicked 
off his low-heeled slippers, and rapidly, but 
with hardly an audible sound, resumed the 
work on which he had been engaged, — the 
arrangement of his master’s kit. 

Already, faultlessly brushed, folded and hang- 
ing over the back of a chair close by the cham- 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


13 


ber door were the bright blue, scarlet-welted 
battery trousers then in vogue, very snug at the 
knee, very springy over the foot. Underneath 
them, spread over the square back of the chair, 
a dark-blue, single-breasted frock-coat, hanging 
nearly to the floor, its shoulders decked with 
huge epaulettes, to the right one of which were 
attached the braid and loops of a heavy gilt 
aiguillette whose glistening pendants were hung 
temporarily on the upper button. On the seat 
of the chair was folded a broad soft sash of red 
silk net, its tassels carefully spread. Beside it 
lay a pair of long bufl* gauntlets, new and spot- 
less. At the door, brilliantly polished, stood a 
pair of buttoned gaiter boots, the heels deco- 
rated with small glistening brass spurs. In the 
corner, close at hand, leaned a long curved 
sabre, its gold sword-knot, its triple-guarded 
hilt, its steel scabbard and plated bands and 
rings, as well as the swivels and buckle of the 
black sword-belt, showing the perfection of fin- 
ish in manufacture and care in keeping. From a 
round leather box Ananias now extracted a new 
gold-wire fouraghe, which he softly wiped with 
a silk handkerchief, dandled lovingly an instant 
the glistening tassels, coiled it carefully upon 
2 


14 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


the sash, then producing from the same box a 
long scarlet horsehair plume he first brushed it 
into shimmering freedom from the faintest knot 
or kink, then set it firmly through its socket into 
the front of a gold-braided shako whose black 
front was decked with the embroidered cross 
cannon of the regiment, surmounted by the 
arms of the United States. This he noiselessly 
placed upon the edge of the mantel, stepped 
back to complacently view his work, flicked off 
a possible speck of dust on the sleeve of the 
coat, touched with a chamois-skin the gold cres- 
cent of the nearest epaulette, then softly, noise- 
lessly as before vanished through the door-way, 
tiptoed to the adjoining window, and peeked in. 
Mr. Doyle had thrown himself into Pierce’s 
arm-chair, and was trying to read the morning 
paper. 

“ “Wunner what Mars’er Pierce will say when 
he gits back from breakfast,” was Ananias’s 
comment, as he sped softly down the stairs, a 
broad grin on his black face, a grin that almost 
instantly gave place to preternatural solemnity 
and respect as, turning sharply on the sidewalk 
at the foot of the stairs, he came face to face 
with the battery commander. Ananias would 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


16 


have passe i with a low obeisance, but the cap- 
tain halted him short. 

“Where’s Mr. Waring, sir?” 

“ Dressin’ fo’ inspection, captain.” 

“ He is ? I just heard in the mess-room that 
he didn’t propose attending, — that he had an 
engagement to breakfast and was going in 
town.” 

“Ye-as, sub, ye-as, suh. General Eoosseau, 
sub, expected de lieutenant in to breakfast, but 
ie moment he hyuhd ’twas review he ohdered 
me to git everything ready, suh. I’s goin’ for 
de bay colt now. Beg pahdon, captain, de 
lieutenant says is de captain goin’ to wear 
gauntlets or gloves dis mawnin’ ? He wants to 
do just as de captain does, suh.” 

What a merciful interposition of divine Provi- 
dence it is that the African cannot blush ! Cap 
tain Cram looked suspiciously at the earnest, 
unwinking, black face before him. Some mem- 
ory of old college days flitted through his mind 
at the moment. “ 0 Kunopes !” (“ thou dog- 
faced one!"^ he caught himself muttering, but 
negro diplomacy was too much for him, and the 
innocence in the face of Ananias would have 
baffled a man far more suspicious. Cram was 


16 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


a fellow who loved his battery and his profes* 
sion as few men loved before. He was full of 
big ideas in one way and little oddities in 
another. Undoubted ability had been at the 
bottom of his selection over the head of many 
a senior to command one of the light batteries 
when the general dismounting took place in ’66. 
Unusual attractions of person had won him a 
wife with a fortune only a little later. The 
fortune had warranted a short leave abroad this 
very year. (He would not have taken a day 
over sixty, for fear of losing his light battery.) 
He had been a stickler for gauntlets on all 
mounted duty when he went away, and he came 
home converted to white wash-leather gloves 
because the British horse-artillery wore no 
other, ‘‘and they, sir, are the nattiest in the 
world.” He could not tolerate an officer whose 
soul was not aflame with enthusiasm for battery 
duty, and so was perpetually at war with Wa- 
ring, who dared to have other aspirations. He 
delighted in a man who took pride in his dress 
and equipment, and so rejoiced in Waring, who, 
more than any subaltern ever attached to “ X,” 
was the very glass of soldier fashion and mould 
of soldier form. He had dropped in at the 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


17 


bachelor mess just in time to hear some gab- 
bling youngster blurt out a bet that Sam War 
ring would cut review and keep bis tryst in 
town, and be bad known him many a time to 
overpersuade his superiors into excusing him 
from duty on pretext of social claims, and more 
than once into pardoning deliberate absence. 
But be and the post commander had deemed it 
high time to block all that nonsense in future, 
and bad so informed him, and were, nonplussed 
at Waring’s cheery acceptance of the implied 
rebuke and most airy, graceful, and immediate 
change of the subject. The whole garrison was 
chuckling over it by night. 

‘‘Why, certainly, colonel,” said he, “I have 
been most derelict of late during the visit of 
all these charming people from the E’orth ; and 
that reminds me, some of them are going to 
drive out here to hear the band this afternoon 
and take a bite at my quarters. I was just on 
my way to beg Mrs. Braxton and Mrs. Cram to 
receive for me, when your orderly came. And, 
colonel, I want your advice about the cham- 
pagne. Of course I needn’t say I hope you 
both will honor me with your presence.” Old 
Brax loved champagne and salad better than 
b 2* 


18 


WARING^S PERIL. 


anything his profession afforded, and was dis- 
armed at once. As for Cram, what could he 
say when the post commander dropped the 
matter ? With all his daring disregard of 
orders and established customs, with all his 
* consummate sang-froid and what some called 
impudence and others “ cheek,” every superior 
under whom he had ever served had sooner or 
later become actually fond of Sam Waring, — 
even stern old Rounds, — ‘‘ old Double Rounds” 
the boys called him, one of the martinets of the 
service, whose first experience with the fellow 
was as memorable as it was unexpected, and 
who wound up, after a vehement scoring of 
some two minutes’ duration, during which Wa- 
ring had stood patiently at attention with an 
expression of the liveliest sympathy and interest 
on his handsome face, by asking impressively, 
ITow, sir, what have you to say for yourself?” 

To which, with inimitable mixture of suavity 
and concern, Sam replied, “ R'othing whatever, 
sir. I doubt if anything more could be said. I 
had no adequate idea of the extent of my mis- 
doing. Have I your permission to sit down, sir, 
and think it over ?” 

Rounds aclually didn’t know what to think, 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


19 


and still less what to say. Had he believed for 
an instant that the young gentleman was insin- 
cere, he would have had him in close arrest in 
the twinkling of an eye; hut Waring’s tone and 
words and manner were those of contrition 
itself. It was not possible that one of the hoys 
should dare to be guying him, the implacable 
Rounds, ‘‘ old Grand Rounds” of the Sixth 
Corps, old Double Rounds of the horse-artillery 
of the Peninsula days. Mrs. Rounds had her 
suspicions when told of the affair, but was silent, 
for of all the officers stationed in and around 
the old Southern city Sam "Waring was by long 
odds the most graceful and accomplished dancer 
and german leader, the best informed on all 
manner of interesting matters, — social, musical, 
dramatic, fashionable, — the prime mover in gar- 
rison hops and parties, the connecting link 
between the families of the general and staff 
officers in town and the linesmen at the sur- 
rounding posts, the man whose dictum as to a 
dinner or luncheon and whose judgment as to a 
woman’s toilet were most quoted and least ques- 
tioned, the man whose word could almost make 
or mar an army girl’s success; and good old 
Lady Rounds had two such encumbrances the 


20 


WARING^S PERIL. 


first winter of their sojourn in the South, and 
two army girls among so many are subjects of 
not a little thought and care. If Mr. Waring 
had not led the second german with Margaret 
Rounds the mother’s heart would have been 
well-nigh crushed. It was fear of some such 
catastrophe that kept her silent on the score of 
Waring’s reply to her irate lord, for if Sam did 
mean to be impertinent, as he unquestionably 
could be, the colonel she knew would be merci- 
less in his discipline and social amenities would 
be at instant end. Waring had covered her 
with maternal triumph and Margaret with 
bliss unutterable by leading the ante-Lenten 
german with the elder daughter and making 
her brief stay a month of infinite joy. The 
Rounds were ordered on to Texas, and Marga- 
ret’s brief romance was speedily and properly 
forgotten in the devotions of a more solid if less 
fascinating fellow. To do Waring justice, he 
had paid the girl no more marked attention 
than he showed to any one else. He would 
have led the next german with Genevieve had 
there been another to lead, just as he had led 
previous affairs with other dames and damsels. 
It was one of the ninety-nine articles of his 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


21 


social faith that a girl should have a good time 
her first season, just as it was another that a 
bride should have a lovely wedding, a belle at 
least one offer a month, a married woman as 
much attention at an army hall as could be lav- 
ished on a bud. He prided himself on the fact 
that no woman at the army parties given that 
winter had remained a wall-fiower. Among 
such a host of officers as was there assembled 
during the year that followed on the heels of 
the war it was no difficult matter, to be sure, to 
find partners for the thirty or forty ladies who 
honored those occasions with their presence. 
Of local belles there were none. It was far too 
soon after the bitter strife to hope for bliss so 
great as that. There were hardly any but army 
women to provide for, and even the bulkiest 
and least attractive of the lot was led out for 
the dance. Waring would go to any length to 
see them on the floor but that of being himself 
the partner. There the line was drawn irrevo- 
cably. The best dancer among the men, ho 
simply would not dance except with the best 
dancers among the women. As to personal ap- 
pearance and traits, it may he said first that 
Waring was a man of slender, graceful phy- 


22 


WARING^S PERIL. 


sique, with singularly well shaped hands and 
feet and a head and face that were almost too 
good-looking to be manly. Dark hazel eyes, 
dark brown hair, eyebrows, lashes, and a very 
heavy drooping moustache, a straight nose, a 
soft, sensitive mouth with even white teeth that 
were, however, rarely visible, a clear-cut chin, 
and with it all a soft, almost languid Southern 
intonation, musical, even ultra-refined, and he 
shrank like a woman from a coarse word or the 
utterance of an impure thought. He was a man 
whom many women admired, of whom some 
were afraid, whom many liked and trusted, for 
he could not be bribed to say a mean thing 
about one of their number, though he would 
sometimes be satirical to her very face. It was 
among the men that Sam Waring was hated 
or loved, — ^loved, laughed over, indulged, even 
spoiled, perhaps, to any and every extent, by 
the chosen few who were his chums and inti- 
mates, and absolutely hated by a very consider- 
able element that was prominent in the army in 
those queer old days, — the array of oj 03 .cers who, 
by reason of birth, antecedents, lack of educa- 
tion or of social opportunities, were wanting in 
those graces of manner and language to which 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


23 


Waring had. been accustomed from earliest boy- 
hood. His people were Southerners, yet, not 
being slave-owners, had stood firm for the 
Union, and were exiled from the old home as 
a natural consequence in a war in which the 
South held all against who were not for her. 
Appointed a cadet and sent to the Military 
Academy in recognition of the loyalty of his 
immediate relatives, he was not graduated until 
the war was practically over, and then, gazetted 
to an infantry regiment, he was stationed for a 
time among the scenes of his boyhood, ostra- 
cized by his former friends and unable to asso- 
ciate with most of the war-worn officers among 
whom his lot was cast. It was a year of misery, 
that ended in long and dangerous illness, his 
final shipment to Washington on sick-leave, and 
then a winter of keen delight, a social campaign 
in which he won fame, honors, friends at court, 
and a transfer to the artillery, and then, joining 
his new regiment, he plunged with eagerness 
into the gayeties of city life. The blues were 
left behind with the cold facings of his former 
corps, and hope, life, duty, were all blended in 
hues as roseate as his new straps were red. It 
wasn’t a month before all the best fellows in the 


24 


WARING^S PERIL. 


batteries swore by Sam Waring and all the 
others at him, so that where there were five who 
liked there were at least twenty who didn’t, and 
these made up in quantity what they lacked in 
quality. 

To sum up the situation. Lieutenant Doyle’s 
expression was perhaps the most comprehensive, 
as giving the views of the great majority 
I were his K. 0. and this crowd the coort, he’d 
’a’ been kicked out of the service months ago.” 

And yet, entertaining or expressing so hos- 
tile an opinion of the laughing lieutenant, Mr. 
Doyle did not hesitate to seek his society on 
many an occasion when he wasn’t wanted, and 
to solace himself at Waring’s sideboard at any 
hour of the day or night, for Waring kept what 
was known as “ open house” to all comers, and 
the very men who wondered how he could 
afford it and who predicted his speedy swamp- 
ing in a mire of debt and disgrace were the 
very ones who were most frequently to be found 
loafing about his gallery, smoking his tobacco 
and swigging his whiskey, a pretty sure sign 
that the occupant of the quarters, however, was 
absent. With none of their number had he 
ever had open quarrel. Remarks made at his 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


25 


expense and reported to him in moments of 
bibulous confidence he treated with gay dis- 
dain, often to the manifest disappointment of his 
informant. In his presence even the most reck- 
less of their number were conscious of a certain 
restraint. Waring, as has been said, detested 
foul language, and had a very quiet but effective 
way^ of suppressing it, often w ithout so much as 
uttering a word. These were the rough days 
of the army, the very roughest it ever knew, 
the days that intervened between the incessant 
strain and tension of the four years’ battling 
and the slow gradual resumption of good order 
and military discipline. The rude speech and 
manners of the camp still permeated every 
garrison. The bulk of the commissioned force 
was made up of hard fighters, brave soldiers 
and loyal servants of the nation, to be sure, but 
as a class they had known no other life or lan- 
guage since the day of their muster-in. Of 
the line officers stationed in and around this 
Southern city in the lovely spring-tide of 186-, 
of a force aggregating twenty companies of 
infantry and cavalry, there were fifty captains 
and lieutenants appointed from the volunteers, 
the ranks, or civil life, to one graduated from 


B 


26 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


West Point. The predominance was in favor 
of ex-sergeants, corporals, or company clerks, 
— good men and true when they wore the 
chevrons, but who, with a few marked and 
most admirable exceptions, proved to he utterly 
out of their element when promoted to a higher 
sphere. The entrance into their midst of Cap- 
tain Cram with his swell light battery, with 
officers and men in scarlet plumes and full- 
dress uniforms, was a revelation to the sombre 
battalions whose officers had not yet even pur- 
chased their epaulettes and had seen no occasion 
to wear them. But when Cram and his lieu- 
tenants came swaggering about the garrison 
croquet-ground in natty shell jackets, Russian 
shoulder-knots, riding-breeches, boots, and spurs, 
there were not lacking those among the sturdy 
foot who looked upon the whole proceeding 
with great disfavor. Cram had two rankers’’ 
with him when he came, but one had trans- 
ferred out in favor of Waring, and now his 
battery was supplied with the full complement 
of subalterns, — Boyle, very much out of place, 
commanding the right section (as a platoon was 
called in those days). Waring commanding the 
left, Ferry serving as chief of caissons, and 


WARING^S PERIL. 


27 


Pierce as battery adjutant and general utility 
man. Two of the officers were graduates of 
West Point and not yet three years out of the 
cadet uniform. Under these circumstances it 
was injudicious in Cram to sport in person the 
aiguillettes and thereby set an example to his 
subalterns which they were not slow to follow. 
With their gold hat-braids, cords, tassels, and 
epaulettes, with scarlet plumes and facings, he 
and his officers were already much more gor- 
geously bedecked than were their infantry 
friends. The post commander, old Rounds, had 
said nothing, because he had had his start in 
the light artillery and might have lived and 
died a captain had he not pushed for a volun- 
teer regiment and fought his way up to a di- 
vision command and a lieutenant-colonelcy of 
regulars at the close of the war, while his 
seniors who stuck to their own corps never rose 
beyond the possibilities of their arm of the 
service and probably never will. But Braxton, 
who succeeded as post commander, knew that 
in European armies and in the old Mexican 
War days the aiguillette was ordinarily the 
distinctive badge of general officers or those 
empowered to give orders in their name. It 


28 


WARINO^S PERIL. 


wasn’t the proper thing for a linesman — battery, 
cavalry, or foot — to wear, said Brax, and he 
thought Cram was wrong in wearing it, even 
though some other battery officers did so. But 
Cram was just hack from Britain. 

Why, sir, look at the Life Guards ! Look 
at the Horse Guards in London ! Every officer 
and man wears the aiguillette.” And Braxton 
was a Briton by birth and breeding, and that 
ended it, — at least so nearly ended it that 
Cram’s diplomatic invitation to come up and 
try some Yeuve Clicquot, extra dry, upon the 
merits of which he desired the colonel’s opin- 
ion, had settled it for good and all. Braxton’s 
officers who ventured to suggest that he trim 
the plumage of these popinjays only got 
snubbed, therefore, for the time being, and 
ordered to buy -the infantry full dress forthwith, 
and Cram and his quartette continued to blaze 
forth in gilded panoply until long after Sam 
Waring led his last german within those echo- 
ing walls and his name lived only as a dim and 
mist-wreathed memory in the annals of old 
Jackson Barracks. 

But on this exquisite April morning no fellow 
in all the garrison was more prominent, if not 


WARING'S PERIL. 


29 


more popular. Despite the slight jealousy ex- 
isting between the rival arms of the service, 
there were good fellows and gallant men among 
the infantry officers at the post, who were as 
cordially disposed towards the gay lieutenant as 
were the comrades of his own (colored) cloth. 
This is the more remarkable because he was 
never known to make the faintest effort to con- 
ciliate anybody and was utterly indifferent to 
public opinion. It would have been fortune far 
better than his deserts, but for the fact that by 
nature he was most generous, courteous, and 
considerate. The soldiers of the battery were 
devoted to him. The servants, black or white, 
would run at any time to do his capricious will. 
The garrison children adored him. There was 
simply no subject under discussion at the bar- 
racks in those days on which such utter variety 
of opinion existed as the real character of 
Lieutenant Sam Waring. As to his habits 
there was none whatever. He was a hon vivant^ 
a swell,” a lover of all that was sweet and fair 
and good and gracious in life. Self-indulgent, 
said everybody; selfish, said some; lazy, said 
many, who watched him day-dreaming through 
the haze of cigar-smoke until a drive, a hop, a 


30 


WARims PERIL. 


ride, or an opera-party would call him into 
action. Slow, said the men, until they saw him 
catch Mrs. Winslow’s runaway horse just at 
that ugly turn in the levee below the south 
tower. Cold-hearted, said many of the women, 
until Baby Brainard’s fatal illness, when he 
watched by the little sufferer’s side and brought 
her flowers and luscious fruit from town, and 
would sit at her mother’s piano and play soft, 
sweet melodies and sing in low tremulous tone 
until the wearied eyelids closed and the sleep no 
potion could bring to that fever-racked brain 
would come at last for him to whom child-love 
was incense and music at once a passion and a 
prayer. Men who little knew and less liked 
him thought his enmity would be but light, and 
few men knew him so well as to realize that his 
friendship could be firm and true as steel. 

And so the garrison was mixed in its mind as 
to Mr. Waring, and among those who heard it 
said at the mess that he meant at all hazards to 
keep his engagement to breakfast in town there 
were some who really wished he might cut 
the suddenly-ordered review and thereby bring 
down upon his shapely, nonchalant head the 
wrath of Colonel Braxton. 


WARING'S PERIL. 31 

“Boots and Saddles” had sounded at the 
artillery barracks. Mr. Pierce, as battery offi- 
cer of the day, had clattered off through the 
north gateway. The battery had marched with 
dancing plumes and clanking sabres out to the 
stables and gun-shed. The horses of Lieu- 
tenants Doyle and Perry were waiting for their 
riders underneath the gallery of their quarters. 
Captain Cram, in much state, followed by his 
orderly bugler and guidon-bearer, all in full 
uniform, was riding slowly down the sunny side 
of the garrison, and at sight of him Doyle and 
Ferry, who were leisurely pulling on their 
gauntlets in front of their respective doors, 
hooked up their sabres and came clattering 
down their stairway; but no Waring had ap- 
peared. There, across the parade on the south- 
ern side, the bay colt, caparisoned in Waring’s 
unimpeachable horse-equipments, was being led 
up and down in the shade of the quarters, Mr. 
Pierce’s boy Jim officiating as groom, while his 
confrere Ananias, out of sight, was at the mo- 
ment on his knoes fastening the strap of his 
master’s riding-trousers underneath the dainty 
gaiter boot, Mr. Waring the while surveying 
the proceeding over the rim of his coffee-cup. 


32 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


“ Dar, suh. ITow into de coat, quick ! Yawn- 
duh goes Captain Cram.’’ 

‘‘Ananias, how often have I told you that, 
howsoever necessary it might he for you to 
hurry, I never do ? It’s unbecoming an officer 
and a gentleman to hurry, sir.” 

“But you’s got to inspect yo’ section, suh, 
befo’ you can repote to Captain Cram. Please 
hurry wid de sash, suh.” And, holding the belt 
extended with both hands, Ananias stood eager 
to clasp it around Waring’s slender waist, hut 
the lieutenant waved him away. 

“ Get thee behind me, imp of Satan! Would 
you have me neglect one of the foremost articles 
of an artilleryman’s faith? Never, sir! If 
there were a wrinkle in that sash it would cut 
a chasm in my reputation, sir.” And, so say- 
ing, he stepped to the open door-way, threw 
the heavy tassel over and around the knob, 
kissed his hand jauntily to his battery com- 
mander, now riding down the opposite side of 
the parade, backed deliberately away the full 
length of the sash across the room, then, hum- 
ming a favorite snatch from “Faust,” deliber- 
ately wound himself into the bright crimson 
web, and, making a broad fiat loop near the 


WARING^S PERIL, 


33 


farther end and without stopping his song, 
nodded coolly to Ananias to come on with the 
belt. In the same calm and deliberate fashion 
he finished his military toilet, set his shako well 
forward on his forehead, the chin-strap hang- 
ing just below the under lip, pulled on the 
buff gauntlets, surveyed himself critically and 
leisurely in the glass, and then began slowly to 
descend the stairs. 

“Wait — jus’ one moment, please, suh,” im- 
plored Ananias, hastening after him. “Jus’ 
happened to think of it, suh: Captain Cram’s 
wearin’ gloves dis mawnin’.” 

“Ah! So much the more chance to come 
back here in ten minutes. — Whoa, coltikins: 
how are you this morning, sir? Think you 
could run away if I begged you to pretty hard ? 
You’ll try, won’t you, old boy?” said Waring, 
stroking the glossy neck of the impatient bay. — 
“Kow, Jim, let go. Kever allow anybody to 
hold a horse for you when you mount. That’s 
highly unprofessional, sir. That’ll do.” And, 
oo saying, he swung himself into saddle, and, 
checking the bounds of his excited colt, rode 
calmly away to join the battery. 

Already the bandsmen were marching through 


34 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


the north gate on the way to the broad open 
field in which the manoeuvres were held. The 
adjutant, sergeant-major, and markers were fol- 
lowing. Just outside the gate the post com- 
mander was seated on horseback, and Cram had 
reined in to speak with him. ISTow, in his 
blithest, cheeriest tones, Waring accosted them, 
raising his hand in salute as he did so : 

‘‘ Grood-morning, colonel. Cood-morning, Cap- 
tain Cram. We’re in luck to-day. Couldn’t 
possibly have lovelier weather. I’m only sorry 
this came ofi‘ so suddenly and I hadn’t time to 
invite our friends out from town. They would 
have been so pleased to see the battalion, — the 
ceremonies.” 

‘‘ H’m ! There was plenty of time if you’d 
returned to the post at retreat yesterday, sir,” 
growled old Braxton. ‘‘Everybody was noti 
fied who was here then. What time did you 
get back, sir ?” 

“Upon my word, colonel, I don’t know. I 
never thought to look or inquire; but it was 
long after taps. Pardon me, though, I see I’m 
late inspecting.” And in a moment he was 
riding quietly around among his teams and 
guns, narrowly scrutinizing each toggle, trace, 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


35 


and strap before taking station midway between 
his lead drivers, and then, as Cram approached, 
reporting, “ Left section ready, sir.” 

Meantime, the infantry companies were march- 
ing out through the gate and then ordering arms 
and resting until adjutant’s call should sound. 
Drivers and cannoneers were dismounted to 
await the formation of the battalion line. Wa- 
ring rode forward and in the most jovial off- 
hand way began telling Cram of the incidents of 
the previous day and his sight-seeing with the 
party of visitors from the ITorth. 

“ By the way, I promised Mr. Allerton that 
they should see that team of yours before they 
left: so, if you’ve no objection, the first morn- 
ing you’re on duty and can’t go up. I’ll take 
advantage of your invitation and drive Miss 
Allerton myself. Doesn’t that court adjourn 
this week?” 

‘‘I’m afraid not,” said Cram, grimly. “It 
looks as though we’d have to sit to-day and 
to-morrow both.” 

“Well, that’s too bad! They all want to 
meet you again. Couldn’t you come up this 
evening after stables ? Hello ! this won’t do ; 
our infantry friends will be criticising us : I se© 


36 


WAMINQ'S PERIL 


you’re wearing gloves, and I’m in gauntlets. 
So is Doyle. We can’t fit him out, I’m afraid, 
but I’ve just got some from Hew York exactly 
like yours. I’ll trot back while we’re waiting, 
if you don’t object, and change them.” 

Cram didn’t want to say yes, yet didn’t like 
to say no. He hesitated, and — ^was lost. In 
another moment, as though never imagining re- 
fusal were possible. Waring had quickly ridden 
away through the gate and disappeared behind 
the high brick wall. 

When the bugle sounded ‘‘mount,” three 
minutes later, and the battery broke into column 
of pieces to march away to the manoeuvring 
grounds, Mr. Ferry left the line of caissons and 
took command of the rear section. All that 
the battery saw of Waring or his mount the 
rest of the morning was just after reaching the 
line, when the fiery colt came tearing riderless 
around the field, joyously dodging every attempt 
of the spectators to catch him, and revelling in 
the delight of kicking up his heels and showing 
off in the presence and sight of his envious 
friends in harness. Plunge though they might, 
the horses could not join; dodge though they 
might, the bipeds could not catch him. Review, 


WARINO'S PERIL, 


37 


inspection, and the long ceremonials of the 
morning went off without the junior first lieu- 
tenant of Battery X,’’ who, for his part, went 
off without ceremony of any kind, Cram’s 
stylish team and wagon with him. That after- 
noon he reappeared driving about the barrack 
square, a pretty girl at his side, both engrossed 
in the music of the hand and apparently obliv- 
ious of the bottled-up wrath of either battery or 
post commander. 

“Be gorra!” said Boyle, “I’d like to be in 
his place now, provided I didn’t have to be in it 
to-morrow.” 

But when the morrow came there came no 
Waring with it. 


38 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


CHAPTER IL 

Eor twenty-four hours old Brax had been 
mad as a hornet. He was not much of a drill- 
master or tactician, but he thought he was, and 
it delighted him to put his battalion through 
the form of review, the commands for which he 
had memorized thoroughly and delivered with 
resonant voice and with all proper emphasis. 
"What he did not fancy, and indeed could not do, 
was the drudge-work of teaching the minutiae 
of the school of the battalion, explaining each 
movement before undertaking its execution. 
This was a matter he delegated to one of his 
senior captains. For a week, therefore, in 
preparation for a possible visit on the part of 
the new brigadier-general or his inspector, the 
six companies of the regiment stationed at the 
post had been fairly well schooled in the cere- 
monies of review and parade, and so long as 
nothing more was required of them than a 
march past in quick time and a ten minutes' 


WARING^S PERIL. 


39 


stand in line all might go well. The general 
had unexpectedly appeared one evening with 
only a single aide-de-camp, simply, as he ex- 
plained, to return the calls of the officers of the 
garrison, six or eight of whom had known 
enough to present themselves and pay their 
respects in person when he arrived in town. 
Braxton swelled with gratified pride at the gen- 
eral’s praise of the spick-span condition of the 
parade, the walks, roads, and visible quarters. 
But it was the very first old-time garrison the 
new chief had ever seen, a splendid fighting 
record with the volunteers during the war, and 
the advantage of taking sides for the Union from 
a doubtful State, having conspired to win him a 
star in the regular service only a year or two 
before. 

‘‘We would have had out the battery and 
given you a salute, sir,” said Brax, “had we 
known you were coming; but it’s after retreat 
now. Uext time, general, if you’ll ride down 
some day. I’ll be proud to give you a review of 
the whole command. We have a great big field 
back here.” 

And the general had promised to come. This 
necessitated combined preparation, hence the 


40 


waring^s peril. 


order for full-dress rehearsal with battery and 
all, and then came confusion. Fresh from the 
command of his beautiful horse-battery and the 
dashing service with a cavalry division, Cram 
hated the idea of limping along, as he expressed 
it, behind a battalion of foot, and said so, and 
somebody told Brax he had said so, — more than 
one somebody, probably, for Brax had many 
an adviser to help keep him in trouble. The 
order that Cram should appear for instruction 
in review of infantry and artillery combined 
gave umbrage to the battery commander, and 
his reported remarks thereupon, renewed cause 
for displeasure to his garrison chief. 

“ So far as we’re concerned,” said Cram, who 
wanted to utilize the good weather for battery 
drill, “ we need no instruction, as we have done 
the trick time and again before; and if we 
hadn’t, who in the bloody Fifty-First is there to 
teach us ? Certainly not old Brax.” 

All the same the order was obeyed, and Cram 
started out that loveliest of lovely spring morn- 
ings not entirely innocent of the conviction that 
he and his fellows were going to have some 
fun out of the thing before they got through 
with it. iN’ot that he purposed putting any 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


41 


hitch or impediment in the way. He meant to 
do just exactly as he was bid; and so, when 
adjutant’s call had sounded and the hlue lines 
of the infantry were well out on the field, he 
followed in glittering column of pieces, his 
satin-coated horses dancing in sheer exuberance 
of spirits and his red-crested cannoneers sitting 
with folded arms, erect and statuesque, upon 
the ammunition-chests. Mrs. Cram, in her 
pretty basket phaeton, with Mrs. Lawrence, of 
the infantry, and several of the ladies of the 
garrison in ambulances or afoot, had taken 
station well to the front of the forming line. 
Then it became apparent that old Brax pur- 
posed to figure as the reviewing officer and had 
delegated Major Minor to command the troops. 
IN'ow, Minor had been on mustering and dis- 
bursing duty most of the war, had never figured 
in a review with artillery before, and knew no 
more about battery tactics than Cram did of 
diplomacy. Mounted on a sedate old sorrel, 
borrowed from the quartermaster for the occa- 
sion, with an antiquated, brass-bound Jenifer 
saddle, minus breast-strap and housings of any 
kind, but equipped with his better half’s brown 
leather bridle. Minor knew perfectly well he 

4 * 


42 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


was only a guy, and felt indignant at Brax for 
putting him in so false a plight. He took his 
station, however, in front of the regimental 
colors, without stopping to think where the 
centre of the line might be after the battery 
came, and there awaited further developments. 
Cram kept nobody waiting, however : his lead- 
ing team was close at the nimble heels of Captain 
Lawrence’s company as it marched gayly forth 
to the music of the band. He formed sections 
at the trot the instant the ground was clear, then 
wheeled into line, passed well to the rear of the 
prolongation of the infantry rank, and by a 
beautiful countermarch came up to the front and 
halted exactly at the instant that Lawrence, with 
the left flank company, reached his post, each 
caisson accurately in trace of its piece, each 
team and carriage exactly at its proper interval, 
and with his crimson silk guidon on the right 
flank and little Pierce signalling “ up” or 
‘‘back” from a point outside where he could 
verify the alignment of the gun-wheels on the 
rank of the infantry. Cram was able to com- 
mand “ front” before little Drake, the adjutant, 
should have piped out his shrill “ Guides posts.” 

But Drake didn’t pipe. There stood all the 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


43 


companies at support, each captain at the inner 
flank, and the guides with their inverted mus- 
kets still stolidly gazing along the line. It was 
time for him to pipe, hut, instead of so doing, 
there he stuck at the extreme right, glaring 
down towards the now immovable battery and 
its serene commander, and the little adjutant^s 
face was getting redder and puffier every minute. 

“ Go ahead ! "WTiat are you waiting for 
hoarsely whispered the senior captain. 

“ Waiting for the battery to dress,” was the 
stanch reply. Then aloud the shrill voice swept 
down the line : “Dress that battery to the right!” 

Cram looked over a glittering shoulder to the 
right of the line, where stood the diminutive 
infantryman. The battery had still its war 
allowance of horses, three teams to each car- 
riage, lead, swing, and wheel, and that brought 
its captain far out to the front of the sombre 
blue rank of foot, — so far out, in fact, that he was 
about on line with Major Minor, though facing 
in opposite direction. Perfectly confident that 
he was exactly where he should be, yet equally 
determined to abide by any order he might 
receive, even though he fully understood the 
cause of Drake’s delay, Cram promptly rode 


44 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


over to the guidon and ordered “ Right dress,’* 
at which every driver’s head and eyes were 
promptly turned, but not an inch of a wheel, 
for the alignment simply could not be improved. 
Then after commanding “ front” the captain as 
deliberately trotted back to his post without so 
much as a glance at the irate staff officer. It 
was just at this juncture that the bay colt came 
tearing down the field, his mane and tail 
streaming in the breeze, his reins and stirrups 
dangling. In the course of his gyrations about 
the battery and the sympathetic plunging of 
the teams some slight disarrangement occurred. 
But when he presently decided on a rush for 
the stables, the captain re-established the align- 
ment as coolly as before, and only noticed as he 
resumed his post that the basket phaeton and 
Mrs. Cram had gone. Alarmed, possibly, by 
the non-appearance of her warm friend Mr. 
Waring and the excited gambolings of his 
vagrant steed, she had promptly driven back to 
the main garrison to see if any accident had 
occurred, the colt meantime amusing himself 
in a game of fast-and-loose with the stable 
guard. 

Then it was that old Brax came down and 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


45 


took a hand. Riding to where Minor still sat on 
his patient sorrel, the senior bluntly inquired, — 

“ What the devil’s the matter ?” 

“ I don’t know,” said Minor. 

“ Who does know ?” 

“Well, Drake, possibly, or else he doesn’t 
know anything. He’s been trying to get Cram 
to dress his battery back.” 

“Why, yes, confound it! he’s a mile ahead 
of the line,” said the colonel, and off he trotted 
to expostulate with the batteryman. “ Captain 
Cram, isn’t there room for your battery back of 
the line instead of in front of it ?” inquired the 
chief, in tone both aggrieved and aggressive. 

“ Lots, sir,” answered Cram, cheerfully. 
“ Just countermarched there.” 

“ Then I wish you’d oblige me by moving 
back at once, sir : you’re delaying the whole 
ceremony here. I’m told Mr. Drake has twice 
ordered you to dress to the right.” 

“I’ve heard it, sir, only once, but have 
dressed twice, so it’s all right,” responded Cram, 
as affably as though he had no other aim in 
life than to gratify the whims of his post com- 
mander. 

“ Why, confound it, sir, it isn’t all right by a 


46 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


da good deal ! Here you are ’way out on 

line with Major Minor, and your battery’s 

why, it isn’t dressed on our rank at all, sir. 
Just look at it.” 

Cram resumed the carry with the sabre he 
had lowered in salute, calmly reversed so as to 
face his battery, and, with preternatural gravity 
of mien, looked along his front. There midway 
between his lead drivers sat Mr. Doyle, his face 
well-nigh as red as his plume, his bleary eyes 
nearly popping out of his skull in his effort to 
repress the emotions excited by this colloquy. 
There midway between the lead drivers in the 
left section sat Mr. Ferry, gazing straight to 
the front over the erected ears of his handsome 
bay and doing his very best to keep a solemn 
face, though the unshaded corners of his boyish 
mouth were twitching with mischief and merri- 
ment. There, silent, disciplined, and rigid, sat 
the sergeants, drivers, and cannoneers of famous 
old Light Battery X,” all agog with interest in 
the proceedings and all looking as though they 
never heard a word. 

I declare, sir,” said Cram, with exasperating 
civility, I can see nothing out of the way. 
Will you kindly indicate what is amiss ?” 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


47 


This was too much for Ferry. In his effort 
to restrain his merriment and gulp down a 
rising flood of laughter there was heard an ex- 
plosion that sounded something like the sud- 
den collapse of an inflated paper bag, and old 
Brax, glaring angrily at the hoy, now red in 
the face with mingled mirth and consternation, 
caught sudden idea from the sight. Was the 
battery laughing at — was the battery com- 
mander guying — him ? Was it possible that 
they were profiting by his ignorance of their 
regulations ? It put him on his guard and sug- 
gested a tentative. 

“ Do you mean that you are right in being so 
far ahead of our line instead of dressed upon it ?” 
asked he of the big blond soldier in the glitter- 
ing uniform. ‘‘Where do you find authority 
for it?” 

“ Oh, perfectly right, colonel. In fact, for six 
years past I’ve never seen it done any other 
way. You’ll find the authority on page 562, 
Field Artillery Tactics of 1864.” 

For a moment Brax was dumb ; he had long 
heard of Cram as an expert in his own branch 
of the service ; but presently he burst forth : 

“ Well, in our tactics there’s reason for every 


48 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


blessed thing we do, but I’ll be dinged if I can 
see rhyme or reason in such a formation as that. 
Why, sir, your one company takes up more room 
than my six, — makes twice as much of a show. 
Of course if a combined review is to show off 
the artillery it’s all very well. However, go 
ahead, if you think you’re right, sir ; go ahead ! 
I’ll inquire into this later.” 

I know we’re right, colonel ; and as for the 
reason, you’ll see it when you open ranks for 
review and we come to ^action front:’ then our 
line will he exactly that of the infantry. Mean- 
time, sir, it isn’t for us to go ahead. We’ve gone 
as far as we can until your adjutant makes the 
next move.” 

But Braxton had ridden away disgusted before 
Cram wound up his remarks. 

“ Gro on. Major Minor; just run this thing 
without reference to the battery. Damned if I 
understand their methods. Let Cram look after 
his own affairs ; if he goes wrong, why — it’s 
none of our concern.” 

And so Minor had nodded Gro ahead” to Mr. 
Drake, and presently the whole command made 
its bow, so to speak, to Minor as its immediate 
chief, and then he drew sword and his untried 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


4d 

voice became faintly audible. The orders “ Pre- 
pare for review” and “ To the rear open order” 
were instantly followed by a stentorian “ Action 
front” down at the left, the instant leap and rush 
of some thirty nimble cannoneers, shouts of 
‘‘ Drive on !” the cracking of whips, the thunder 
and rumble of wheels, the thud of plunging 
hoofs. Forty-eight mettlesome horses in teams 
of two abreast went dancing briskly away to 
the rear, at sight of which Minor dropped his 
jaw and the point of his sword and sat gazing 
blankly after them, over the bowed head of his 
placid sorrel, wondering what on earth it meant 
that they should all be running away at the very 
instant when he expected them to brace up for 
review. But before he could give utterance to 
his thoughts eight glossy teams in almost simul 
taneous sweep to the left about came sharply 
around again. The black muzzles of the guns 
were pointed to the front, every axle exactly in 
the prolongation of his front rank, every little 
group of red-topped, red-trimmed cannoneers 
standing erect and square, the chiefs of section 
and of pieces sitting like statues on their hand- 
some horses, the line of limbers accurately 
covering the guns, and, still farther back, Mr. 
o d 5 


50 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


Pierce could be heard shouting his orders for the 
alignment of the caissons. In the twinkling of 
an eye the rush and thunder were stilled, the 
battery without the twitch of a muscle stood 
ready for review, and old Brax, sitting in saddle 
at the reviewing point, watching the stirring 
sight with gloomy and cynical eye, was chafed 
still more to hear in a silvery voice from the 
group of ladies the unwelcome words, “ Oh, 
wasn’t that pretty!” He meant with all his 
heart to pull in some of the plumage of those 
confounded “ woodpeckers,” as he called them, 
before the day was over. 

In grim silence, therefore, he rode along the 
front of the battalion, taking little comfort in 
the neatness of their quaint old-fashioned garb, 
the single-breasted, long-skirted frock-coats, the 
bulging black felt hats looped up on one side 
and decked with skimpy black feather, the glis- 
tening shoulder-scales and circular breastplates, 
the polish of their black leather belts, cartridge- 
and cap-boxes and bayonet-scabbards. It was 
all trim and soldierly, but he was bottling up his 
sense of annoyance for the benefit of Cram and 
his people. Yet what could he say? Heither 
he nor Minor had ever before been brought into 


WARING'S PERIL. 


51 


such relations with the light artillery, and he 
simply didn’t know where to hit. Lots of things 
looked queer, but after this initial experience he 
felt it best to say nothing until he could light on 
a point that no one could gainsay, and he found 
it in front of the left section. 

“Where is Mr. Waring, sir?” he sternly 
asked. 

“I wish I knew, colonel. His horse came 
back without him, as you doubtless saw, and, as 
he hasn’t appeared. I’m afraid of accident.” 

“ How did he come to leave his post, sir ? I 
have no recollection of authorizing anything of 
the kind.” 

“ Certainly not, colonel. He rode back to his 
quarters with my consent before adjutant’s call 
had sounded, and he should have been with us 
again in abundant time.” 

“ That young gentleman needs more discipline 
than he is apt to receive at this rate. Captain 
Cram, and I desire that you pay closer attention 
to his movements than you have done in the 
past. — Mr. Drake,” he said to his adjutant, who 
was tripping around after his chief afoot, “ call 
on Mr. Waring to explain his absence in writing 
and without delay. — This indifference to duty is 


62 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


sometliing to which I am utterly unaccustomed,” 
continued Braxton, again addressing Cram, who 
preserved a most uncompromising serenity of 
countenance; and with this parting shot the 
colonel turned gruffly away and soon retook his 
station at the reviewing point. 

Then came the second hitch. Minor had had 
no experience whatever, as has been said, and 
he first tried to wheel into column of companies 
without closing ranks, whereupon every captain 
promptly cautioned “ Stand fast,” and thereby 
banished the last remnant of Minor’s senses. 
Seeing that something was wrong, he tried 
again, this time prefacing with “Pass in re- 
view,” and still the captains were implacable. 
The nearest one, in a stage whisper, tried to 
make the major hear “ Close order, first.” But 
all the time Brax was losing more of his temper 
and Minor what was left of his head, and Brax 
came down like the wolf on the fold, gave the 
command to “ Close order” himself, and was 
instantly echoed by Cram’s powerful shout 
“ Limber to the rear,” followed by “ Pieces left 
about! Caissons forward!” Then in the rum- 
ble and clank of the responding battery. Minor’s 
next command was heard by only the right 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


53 


wing of the battalion, and the company wheels 
were ragged. So was the next part of the per- 
formance when he started to march in review, 
never wailing, of course, for the battery to 
wheel into column of sections. This omission, 
however, in no wise disconcerted Cram, who, 
following at rapid walk, soon gained on the rear 
of column, passing his post commander in beau- 
tiful order and with most accurate salute on the 
part of himself and officers, and, observing this. 
Minor took heart, and, recovering his senses to 
a certain extent, gave the command ‘‘ Guide 
left” in abundant time to see that the new 
guides were accurately in trace, thereby insur- 
ing what he expected to find a beautiful wheel 
into line to the left, the commands for which 
movement he gave in louder and more confident 
tone, hut was instantly nonplussed by seeing the 
battery wheel into line to the right and move off 
in exactly the opposite direction from what he 
had expected. This was altogether too much 
for his equanimity. Digging his spurs into the 
flanks of the astonished sorrel, he darted off 
after Cram, waving his sword, and shouting, — 

‘‘ Left into line wheel, captain. Left into line 
wheel.” 


6 * 


54 


WARINQ'S PERIL 


In vain Mr. Pierce undertook to explain 
matters. Minor presumed that the artilleryman 
had made an actual blunder and was only 
enabled to correct it by a countermarch, and so 
rode back to his position in front of the centre 
of the reforming line, convinced that at last he 
had caught the battery commander. 

When Braxton, therefore, came down to 
make his criticisms and comments upon the 
conduct of the review. Minor was simply 
amazed to find that instead of being in error 
Cram had gone exactly right and as prescribed 
by his drill regulations in wheeling to the right 
and gaining ground to the rear before coming 
up on the line. He almost peevishly declared 
that he wished the colonel, if he proposed 
having a combined review, would assume com- 
mand himself, as he didn’t care to be bothered 
with combination tactics of which he had never 
had previous knowledge. Being of the same 
opinion, Braxton himself took hold, and the 
next performance, though somewhat erroneous 
in many respects, was a slight improvement on 
the first, though Braxton did not give time for 
the battery to complete one movement before he 
would rush it into another. When the officers 


WARING'S PERIL. 


66 


assembled to compare notes during the rest 
after the second repetition, Minor growled that 
this was “ a little better, yet not good,” which 
led to some one suggesting in low tone that the 
major got his positives and comparatives worse 
mixed than his tactics, and inquiring further 
“whether it might not be well to dub him 
Minor Major.” The laughter that followed this 
sally naturally reached the ears of the seniors, 
and so Brax never let up on the command until 
the review went off without an error of any 
appreciable weight, without, in fact, “ a hitch in 
the fut or an unhitch in the harse,” as Doyle ex- 
pressed it. It was high noon when the battalion 
got back to barracks and the officers hung out 
their moist clothing to dry in the sun. It was 
near one when the battery men, officers and all, 
came steaming up from the stables, and there 
was the coloneFs orderly with the colonel’s com- 
pliments and desires to see Captain Cram before 
the big batteryman had time to change his dress. 

Braxton’s first performance on getting into 
cool habiliments was to go over to his office 
and hunt through the book-shelves for a volume 
in which he never before had felt the faintest 
interest, — the Light Artillery Tactics of 1864. 


5C 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


There on his desk lay a stack of mail unopened, 
and Mr. Drake was already silently inditing the 
summary note to the culprit Waring. Brax 
wanted first to see with his own eyes the in- 
structions for light artillery when reviewed with 
other troops, vaguely hoping that there might 
still be some point on which to catch his foeman 
on the hip. But if there were he did not find 
it. He was tactician enough to see that even if 
Cram had formed with his leading drivers on 
line with the infantry, as Braxton thought he 
should have done, neither of the two methods 
of forming into battery would then have got his 
guns where they belonged. Cram’s interpre- 
tation of the text was backed by the custom 
of service, and there was no use criticising it 
further. And so, after discontentedly hunting 
through the dust-covered pages awhile in hopes 
of stumbling on some codicil or rebuttal, the 
colonel shut it with a disgusted snap and tossed 
the ofiending tome on the farthest table. At 
that moment Brax could have wished the board 
of officers who prepared the Light Artillery 
Tactics in the nethermost depths of the neigh- 
boring swamp. Then he turned on his silent 
Btafi* officer,--a not unusual expedient. 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


57 


Why on earth, Mr. Drake, didn’t you look 
up that point, instead of making such a break 
before the whole command ?” 

“ I couldn’t find anything about it in Casey, 
sir, anywhere,” replied the perturbed young 
man. “ I didn’t know where else to look.” 

“ W’ell, you might have asked Mr. Ferry or 
Mr. Pierce. The Lord knows you waste enough 
time with ’em.” 

“ You might have asked Captain Cram,” was 
what Drake wanted tc say, but wisely did not. 
He bit the end of his penholder instead, and 
bridled his tongue and temper. 

The next time I have a review with a 
mounted battery, by George !” said the post 
commander, finally, bringing his fist down on 
the table with a crash, ‘‘ I just — won’t have it.” 

He had brought down the pile of letters as 
well as his fist, and Drake sprang to gather 
them, replacing them on the desk and dexter- 
ously slipping a paper-cutter under the fiap of 
each envelope as he did so. At the very first 
note he opened, Brax threw himself back in his 
chair with a long whistle of mingled amaze- 
ment and concern, then turned suddenly on his 
adjutant. 


58 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


‘‘ "Wliat became of Mr. Waring? He wasn’t 
hurt?’’ 

‘‘ Hot a bit, sir, that I know of. He drove to 
town with Captain Cram’s team, — at least I was 
told so, — and left that note for you there, sir.” 

“ He did ! — left the post and left a note for 

me ? Why ! ” But here Braxton broke off 

short, tore open the note, and read : 

“ My dear Colonel, — I trust you will over- 
look the informality of my going to town with- 
out previously consulting you. I had purposed, 
of course, asking your permission, but the mis- 
hap that befell me in the runaway of my horse 
prevented my appearance at the review, and 
had I waited your return from the field it 
would have compelled me to break my engage- 
ment with our friends the Allertons. Under the 
circumstances I felt sure of your complaisance. 

As I hope to drive Miss Allerton down after 
the matinee^ might it not be a good idea to have 
dress-parade and the band out? They have 
seen the battery drills, but are much more de- 
sirous of seeing the infantry. 

‘‘ Most sincerely yours, 

S. Gi. Waring.” 


WARING'S PERIL. 


59 


Well, for consummate impudence this beats 
the Jews !” exclaimed Brax. “ Orderly, my 
compliments to Captain Cram, and say I wish 
to see him at once, if he’s back from stables.” 

IN^ow, as has been said. Cram had had no time 
to change to undress uniform, but Mrs. Cram 
had received the orderly’s message, had in- 
formed that martial Mercury that the captain 
was not yet back from stables, and that she 
would tell him at once on his return. Well 
she knew that mischief was brewing, and her 
woman’s wit was already enlisted in behalf of 
her friend. Hurriedly pencilling a note, she 
sent a messenger to her liege, still busy with his 
horses, to bid him come to her, if only for a 
moment, on his way to the office. And when 
he came, heated, tired, but bubbling over with 
eagerness to tell her of the fun they had been 
having with Brax, she met him with a cool 
tankard of shandygaff,” which he had learned 
to like in England among the horse-artillery fel- 
lows, and declared the very prince of drinks after 
active exercise in hot weather. He quaffed it 
eagerly, flung off his shako and kissed her grate- 
fully, and burst all at once into laughing narra- 
tion of the morning’s work, but she checked him : 


60 


WARINO^S PERIL. 


!N’ed, dear, don’t stop for that yet. I know 
you’re too full of tact to let Colonel Braxton see 
it was any fun for you, and he’s waiting at 
the office. Something tells me it’s about Mr. 
Waring. ^Tow put yourself in Mr. Waring’s 
place. Of course he ought never to have made 
that engagement until he had consulted you, but 
he never dreamed that there would be a review 
to-day, and so he invited the Allertons to break- 
fast with him at Moreau’s and go to the matinh.^^ 
Why, that rascal Ananias said it was to 
breakfast at the general’s,” interrupted the bat- 
tery commander. 

“Well, perhaps he was invited there too. I 
believe I did hear something of that. But he 
had made this arrangement with the Allertons. 
Now, of course, if review were over at ten he 
could just about have time to dress and catch 
the eleven-o’clock car, hut that would make it 
very late, and when Bay Billy broke away from 
Ananias nobody could catch him for over half 
an hour. Mr. Ferry had taken the section, Mr. 

Waring wasn’t needed, and Why, Ned, 

when I drove in, fearing to find him injured, 
and saw him standing there the picture of con- 
sternation and despair, and he told me about his 


WARING^S PERIL. 


61 


engagement, I said myself, ‘ Why don’t you go 
now V I told him it was what you surely would 
say if you were here. Neither of us thought 
the colonel would object, so long as you ap- 
proved, and he wrote such a nice note. Why, 
Ned, he only just had time to change his dress 

and drive up with Jeffers ” 

“ With Jeffers ? With my — er — our team and 

wagon ? Well, I like ” 

‘‘ Of course you like it, you old darling. 
She’s such a dear girl, though just a little bit 
gushing, you know. WTiy, I said, certainly the 
team should go. But, Ned, here’s what I’m 
afraid of. Mrs. Braxton saw it drive in at nine- 
thirty, just after Billy ran away, and she asked 
Jeffers who was going, and he told her Mr. 
Waring, and she has told the colonel. I’ll wager. 
Now, what you have got to do is to explain that 
to him, so that he won’t blame Mr. Waring.” 

“ The dickens I have ! The most barefaced 
piece of impudence even Sam Waring was ever 
guilty of — to me, at least, though I’ve no doubt 
he’s done worse a dozen times. Why, bless 
your heart, Nell, how can I explain? You 
might, but ” 

“But would you have me suppose my big 
6 


62 WAKING'S PERIL. 

soldier couldn’t handle that matter as well as I ? 
!N’o, sir ! Go and do it, sir. And, mind you, 
I’m going to invite them all up here to the gal- 
lery to hear the hand play and have a cup of tea 
and a nibble when they come down this evening. 
He’s going to drive the Allertons here.” 

“Worse and more of it! Why, you con- 
spiracy in petticoats, you’ll he the ruin of me ! 
Old Brax is boiling over now. If he dreams 
that Waring has been taking liberties with him 
he’ll fetch him up so short ” 

“ Exactly ! You mustn’t let him. You must 
tell him I sent him up with your team — yours, 
mind you — to keep his engagement, since it 
was impossible for him to come back to re- 
view ground. Of course he wouldn’t expect 
him to appear afoot.” 

“Don’t know about that, Hell. I reckon 
that’s, the way he’ll order out the whole gang 
of us next time. He’s had his fill of mounted 
work to-day.” 

“ Well, if he should, you be sure to acquiesce 
gracefully now. Whatsoever you do, don’t let 
him put Mr. Waring in arrest while Gwen 
Allerton is here. It would spoil — e^’erything.” 

“ Oh, match-making, is it ? Then I’ll try.” 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


63 


And so, vexed, but laughing, half indignant, yet 
wholly subordinate to the whim of his beloved 
better half, the captain hastened over, and found 
Colonel Braxton sitting with gloomy brow at 
his littered desk, his annoyance of the morning 
evidently forgotten in matters more serious. 

‘‘ Oh — er — Cram, come in, come in, man,” 
said he, distractedly. “ Here’s a matter I want 
to see you about. It’s — well, just take that 
letter and read. Sit down, sit down. Read, 
and tell me what we ought to do about it.” 

And as Cram’s blue eyes wandered over the 
written page they began to dilate. He read 
from start to finish, and then dropped his head 
into his hand, his elbow on his knee, his face 
full of perplexity and concern. 

“"WTiat do you think of it? Is there any 
truth ” and the colonel hesitated. ^ 

‘‘As to their being seen together, perhaps. 
As to the other, — the challenge, — I don’t be- 
lieve it.” 

“Well, Cram, this is the second or third letter 
that has come to me in the same hand. How, 
you must see to it that he returns and doesn’t 
quit the post until this matter is arranged.” 

“ I’ll attend to it, sir,” was the answer. 


64 


WARING'S PERIL. 


And so tliat evening, while Waring was 
slowly driving his friends about the shaded 
roads under the glistening white pillars of the 
rows of officers’ quarters, chatting joyously with 
them and describing the objects co strange to 
their eyes, Mrs. Cram’s “ little foot-page” came 
to beg that they should alight a few minutes 
and take a cup of tea. They could not. The 
Allertons were engaged, and it was necessary to 
drive back at once to town, hut they stopped 
for a moment to chat with their pretty hostess 
under the gallery, and then a moment later, as 
they rolled out of the resounding sally-port, an 
orderly ran up, saluted, and slipped a note in 
Waring’s hand. 

It is immediate, sir,” was his explanation. 

“ Ah ! Miss Allerton, will you pardon me one 
moment?” said Waring, as he shifted whip and 
reins into the left hand and turned coolly up the 
levee road. Then with the right he forced open 
and held up the missive. 

It only said, “Whatsoever you do, be here 
before taps to-night. Come direct to me, and 
I will explain. 

“ Your friend, 

“ Cram.” 


WARINO^S PERIL. 


65 


“ All right,” said Waring, aloud. ‘‘ My com- 
pliments to the captain, and say I’ll he with 
him.” 

But even with this injunction he failed to 
appear. Midnight came without a word from 
Waring, and the morning dawned and found 
him absent still. 


66 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


CHAPTER IIL. 

It was one of Sam "Waring’s oddities that, like 
the hero of “ Happy Thoughts,” other people’s 
belongings seemed to suit him so much better 
than his own. The most immaculately dressed 
man in the regiment, he was never satisfied 
with the result of the efforts of the Hew York 
artists whom he favored with his custom and 
his criticism. He would wear three or four 
times a new coat just received from that me- 
tropolis, and spend not a little time, when not 
on duty or in uniform, in studying critically its 
cut and fit in the various mirrors that hung about 
his bachelor den, gayly humming some operatic 
air as he conducted the survey, and generally 
winding up with a wholesale denunciation of 
the cutter and an order to Ananias to go over 
and get some other fellow’s coat, that he might 
try the effect of that. These were liberties he 
took only with his chums and intimates, to be 
sure, hut they were liberties all the same, and it 


WARING'S PERIL. 


67 


was delicious to hear the laugh with which he 
would tell how Pierce had to dress in uniform 
when he went up to the opera Thursday night, 
or how, after he had worn Ferry’s stylish morn- 
ing suit to make a round of calls in town and 
that young gentleman later on went up to see 
a pretty girl in whom he felt a growing inter- 
est, her hateful little sister had come in and 
commented on his ‘‘borrowing Mr. Waring’s 
clothes.” N’o man in the battery would ever 
think of refusing Sam the use of anything he 
possessed, and there were half a dozen young 
fellows in the infantry who were just as ready 
to pay tribute to his whims. Nor was it among 
the men alone that he found such indulgence. 
Mrs. Cram had not known him a fortnight 
when, with twinkling eyes and a betraying 
twitch about the corners of his mouth, he ap- 
peared one morning to say he had invited some 
friends down to luncheon at the officers’ mess 
and the mess had no suitable china, therefore he 
would thank her to send over hers, also some 
table-cloths and napkins, and forks and spoons. 
"When the Forty- Sixth Infantry were on their 
way to Texas and the officers’ families were 
entertained over-night at the barracks and his 


68 


WARJNG'S PERIL. 


rooms were to be occupied by the wife, sister, 
and daughters of Captain Craney, Waring sent 
he battery team and spring wagon to town with 
a note to Mrs. Converse, of the staff, telling her 
the ladies had said so much about the lovely 
way her spare rooms were furnished that he had 
decided to draw on her for wash-bowls, pitchers, 
mosquito-frames, nets and coverlets, blankets, 
pillows, slips, shams, and anything else she 
might think of. And Mrs. Converse loaded up 
the wagon accordingly. This was the more 
remarkable in her case because she was one of 
the women with whom he had never yet danced, 
which was tantamount to saying that in the 
opinion of this social bashaw Mrs. Converse was 
not considered a good partner, and, as the lady 
entertained very different views on that subject 
and was passionately fond of dancing, she had 
resented not a little the line thus drawn to her 
detriment. She not only loaned, however, all 
he asked for, but begged to be informed if 
there were not something more she could do to 
help entettain his visitors. Waring sent her 
some lovely flowers the next week, but failed to 
take her out even once at the staff german. 
Mrs. Cram v’as alternately? aghast and delighted 


WAKING'S PERIL 


69 


at what she perhaps justly called his incom- 
parable impudence. They were coming out of 
church together one lovely morning during the 
winter. There was a crowd in the vestibule. 
Street dresses were then worn looped, yet there 
was a sudden sound of rip, rent, and tear, and a 
portly woman gathered up the trailing skirt of 
a costly silken gown and whirled with annihila- 
tion in her eyes upon the owner of the offending 
foot. 

‘‘ That is far too elegant a skirt to be worn 
unlooped, madame,” said Mrs. Cram’s imper- 
turbable escort, in his most suave and dulcet 
tones, lifting a glossy silk hat and bowing pro- 
foundly. And Mrs. Cram laughed all the way 
back to barracks at the recollection of the utter 
discomfiture in the woman’s face. 

These are mere specimen bricks from the 
fabric which Waring had builded in his few 
months of artillery service. The limits of the 
story are all too contracted to admit of extended 
detail. So, without further expansion, it may 
be said that when he drove up to town on this 
eventful April day in Cram’s wagon and Lar- 
kin’s hat and Ferry’s Hatfield clothes, with 
Pierce’s precious London umbrella by his side 


70 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


and Merton’s watch in his pocket, he was as 
stylish and presentable a fellow as ever issued 
from a battery barrack, and Jeffers, Cram’s 
English groom, mutely approved the general 
appearance of his prime favorite among the 
officers at the post, at most of whom he opened 
his eyes in cockney amaze, and critically noted 
the skill with which Mr. Waring tooled the 
spirited hays along the levee road. 

Nearly a mile above the barracks, midway 
between the long embankment to their left and 
the tall white picket fence surmounted by the 
olive-green foliage of magnolias and orange- 
trees on the other hand, they had come upon 
a series of deep mud-holes in the way, where 
the seepage-water from the rapidly-rising flood 
was turning the road-way into a pond. Stuck 
helplessly in the mud, an old-fashioned cabri- 
olet was halted. Its driver was out and up 
to his knees thrashing vainly at his straining, 
staggering horse. The tortuous road-way was 
blocked, but Waring had been up and down 
the river-bank too many times both day and 
night to be daunted by a matter so trivial. He 
simply cautioned Jeffers to lean well over the 
inner wheel, guided his team obliquely up the 


WARINO'S PERIL. 


71 


dope of the levee, and drove quietly along its 
level top until abreast the scene of the wreck. 
One glance into the interior of the cab caused 
him suddenly to stop, to pass the reins back to 
J effers, to spring down the slope until he stood 
at the edge of the sea of mud. Here he raised 
his hat and cried, — 

“ Madame Lascelles ! madame ! this is indeed 
lucky — for me. Let me get you out.” 

At his call a slender, graceful woman who 
was gazing in anxiety and dismay from the 
opposite side of the cab and pleading with the 
driver not to beat his horse, turned suddenly, 
and a pair of lovely dark eyes lighted up at 
sight of his face. Her pallor, too, gave instant 
place to a warm flush. A pretty child at her 
side clapped her little hands and screamed with 
delight, — 

^‘Maman! maman! C’est M’sieu’ Vayreeng; 
c^est Sa-am.” 

“ Oh, Monsieur Wareeng! Tm so glad you’ve 
come ! Do speak to that man ! It is horrible 
the way he beat that poor horse . — Mais non, 
Hin Hin !” she cried, reproving the child, now 
stretching forth her little arms to her friend and 
striving to rise and leap to him. 


72 


WARING'S PERIL. 


“ rd like to know how in hell Tm to get this 
cab out of such a hole as this if I don’t beat 
him,” exclaimed the driver, roughly. Then 
once more, “Dash blank dash your infernal 
hide ! I’ll learn you to balk with me again !” 
Then down came more furious lashes on the 
quivering hide, and the poor tortured brute 
began to hack, thereby placing the frail four- 
wheeler in imminent danger of being upset. 

“ Steady there ! Hold your hand, sir ! Don’t 
strike that horse again. Just stand at his head 
a moment and keep quiet till I get these ladies 
out,” called Waring, in tone quiet yet com- 
manding. 

“ I’ll get ’em out myself in my own way, if 
they’ll only stop their infernal yellin’,” was the 
coarse reply. 

“ Oh, Monsieur Wareeng,” exclaimed the lady 
in undertone, “ the man has been drinking, I am 
sure. He has been so rude in his language.” 

Waring waited for no more words. Looking 
quickly about him, he saw a plank lying on the 
levee slope. This he seized, thrust one end 
across the muddy hole until it rested in the 
cab, stepped lightly across, took the child in his 
arms, bore her to the embankment and set her 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


73 


down, then sprang back for her young mother, 
who, trembling sligh tly, rose and took his out- 
stretched hand just as another lash fell on the 
horse’s hack and another lurch followed. Wa- 
ring caught at the cab-rail with one hand, threw 
the other arm about her slender waist, and, 
fairly lifting little Madame over the wheel, 
sprang with her to the shore, and in an instant 
more had carried her, speechless and somewhat 
agitated, to the top of the levee. 

“ ITow,” said he, ‘‘ let me drive you and !N*in 
N’in wherever you were going. Is it to market 
or church ?” 

non — to bonne maman^s^ of whom it is 
cried the eager little one, despite her 
mother’s stern orders of silence. ‘‘ Look !” she 
exclaimed, showing her dainty little legs and 
feet in creamy silken hose and kid. 

It was “bonne maman,” explained Madame, 
who had ordered the cab from town for them, 
never dreaming of the condition of the river 
road or suspecting that of the driver. 

“ So much the happier for me,” laughed Wa- 
ring. — “ Take the front seat, Jeffers. — hTow, Hin 
Mn, ma fleurette, up with you !” And the de- 
lighted child was lifted to her perch in the 
p 7 


74 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


Btylisli trap she had so often admired. “ I^ow, 
madame,” he continued, extending his hand. 

But Madame hung back, hesitant and blushing. 

‘‘ Oh, Monsieur Wareeng, I cannot, I must 
not. Is it not that some one shall extricate the 
cab ?” 

one from this party, at least,” laughed 
Waring, mischievously making the most of her 
idiomatic query. ‘‘Your driver is more cocAoti 
than cocker, and if he drowns in that mud ’twill 
only serve him right. Like your famous com- 
patriot, he’ll have a chance to say, ‘ I will drown, 
and no one shall help me,’ for all I care. The 
brute! Allons! I will drive you to bonne 
maman’s of whom it is the ftte. Bless that baby 
daughter ! And Madame d’Hervilly shall bless 
Hin Mn’s tout dSvoue Sam.” 

And Madame Lascelles found further remon- 
strance useless. She was lifted into the seat, by 
which time the driver, drunken and truculent, 
had waded after them. 

“ Who’s to pay for this ?” was his surly ques- 
tion. 

“You, I fancy, as soon as your employer 
learns of your driving into that hole,” was 
Waring’s cool reply. 


WARING'S PERIL 


75 


‘‘"Well, by God, I want five dollars for my 
fare and trouble, and I want it right off.” 
And, whip in hand, the burly, mud-covered 
fellow came lurching up the bank. Across the 
^c>ggy street beyond the white picket fence the 
green blinds of a chamber window in an old- 
fashioned Southern house were thrown open, 
and two feminine faces peered forth, interested 
spectators of the scene. 

“Here, my man!” said Waring, in low tone, 
“ you have earned no five dollars, and you know 
it. Get your cab out, come to Madame d’Her- 
villy’s, where you were called, and whatever is 
your due will be paid you ; but no more of this 
swearing or threatening, — not another word of 
it.” 

“I want my money, I say, and I mean to 
have it. I’m not talking to you; I’m talking 
to the lady that hired me.” 

“But I have not the money. It is for my 
mother — Madame d’Hervilly — to pay. You will 
come there.” 

“ I want it now, I say. I’ve got to hire teams 
to get my cab out. I got stalled here carrying 
you and your child, and I mean to have my pay 
right now, or I’ll know the reason why. Your 


76 


WARINO'S PERIL 


swell friend’s got the money. It’s none of my 
business how you pay him.” 

But that ended the colloquy. Waring’s fist 
landed with resounding whack under the cab- 
man’s jaw, and sent him rolling down into the 
mud below. He was up, floundering and furi- 
ous, in less than a minute, cursing horribly and 
groping in the pocket of his overcoat. 

“ It’s a pistol, lieutenant. Look out !” cried 
J effers. 

There was a flash, a sharp report, a stifled cry 
from the cab, a scream of terror from the child. 
But Waring had leaped lightly aside, and before 
the half-drunken brute could cock his weapon for 
a second shot he was felled like a log, and the 
pistol wrested from his hand and hurled across the 
levee. Another blow crashed full in his face as he 
strove to And his feet, and this time his muddled 
senses warned him it were best to lie still. 

Two minutes more, when he lifted his battered 
head and strove to stanch the blood streaming 
from his nostrils, he saw the team driving briskly 
away up the crest of the levee ; and, overcome 
by maudlin contemplation of his foeman’s tri- 
umph and his own wretched plight, the cabman 
sat him down and wept aloud. 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


77 


And to his succor presently there came minis- 
tering angels from across the muddy way, one 
with a brogue, the other in a bandanna, and 
between the two he was escorted across a dry 
path to the magnolia-fringed enclosure, com- 
forted with soothing applications without and 
within, and encouraged to tell his tale of woe. 
That he should wind it up with vehement ex- 
pression of his ‘ ability to thrash a thousand 
swells like the one who had abused him, and a 
piratical prophecy that he’d drink his heart’s 
blood within the week, was due not so much to 
confidence in his own powers, perhaps, as to the 
strength of the whiskey with which he had been 
liberally supplied. Then the lady of the house 
addressed her Ethiop maid-of-all-work : 

“ Go you over to Anatole’s now, 'Louette. 
Tell him if any of the byes are there I wahnt 
’um. If Dawson is there, from the adjutant’s 
office, I wahnt him quick. Tell him it’s Mrs. 
Doyle, and never mind if he’s been dhrinkin’ ; 
he shall have another dhrop here.” 

And at her beck there presently appeared 
three or four besotted-looking specimens in the 
coarse undress uniform of the day, poor devils, 
absent without leave from their post below and 
7 * 


78 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


hoping only to be able to beg or steal whiskey 
enough to stupefy them before the patrol should 
come and drag them away to the guard-house. 
Promise of liberal reward in shape of liquor 
was sufficient to induce three of their number 
to go out with the faming cabman and help 
rescue his wretched brute and trap. The mo- 
ment they were outside the gate she turned on 
the fourth, a pallid, sickly man, whose features 
were delicate, whose hands were white and 
slender, and whose whole appearance, despite 
glassy eyes and tremulous mouth and limbs, told 
the pathetic story of better days. 

‘‘ You’re off ag’in, are you ? Sure I heerd so, 
and you’re mad for a dhrink now. Can ye 
write, Dawson, or must I brace you up furrst ?” 

An imploring look, an unsteady gesture, alone 
answered. 

“ Here, thin, wait ! It’s absinthe ye need, my 
buck. Go you into that room now and wash 
yourself, and I’ll bring it, and whin the others 
come back for their whiskey I’ll tell ’um you’ve 
gone. You’re to do what I say, now, and Doyle 
will see you t’rough ; if not, it’s back to that 
hell in the guard-house you’ll go, my word on 
it.” 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


79 


“ Oh, for Grod’s sake, Mrs. Doyle ” began 

the poor wretch, imploringly, but the woman 
shut him off. 

“ In there wid you ! the others are coming.” 
And, unbarring the front door, she presently 
admitted the trio returning to claim the fruits 
of their honest labor. 

“Is he gone? Did he tell you what hap- 
pened ?” 

“ He’s gone, yes,” answered one : “ he’s gone 
to get square with the lieutenant and his cock- 
ney dog-robber. He says they both jumped on 
him and kicked his face in when he was down 
and unarmed and helpless. Was he lyin’ ?” 

“ Oh, they bate him cruel. But did he tell 
you of the lady — who it was they took from 
him ?” 

“ Why, sure, the wife of that old Frenchman, 
Lascelles, that lives below, — ^her the lieutenant’s 
been sparkin’ this three months.” 

“ The very wan, mind ye !” replied the lady 
of the house, with significant emphasis and 
glance from her bleary eyes ; “ the very wan,” 
she finished, with slow nodding accompaniment 
of the frowzy head. “ And that’s the kind of 
gintlemen that undertakes to hold up their 


80 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


heads over soldiers like Doyle. Here, byes, 
dhrink now, but be olF ag’inst his coming. He’ll 
be here any minute. Take this to comfort ye, 
but kape still about this till ye see me ag’in — or 
Doyle. Now run.” And with scant ceremony 
the dreary party was hustled out through a 
paved court-yard to a gate-way opening on a 
side street. Houses were few and scattering so 
far below the heart of the city. The narrow 
strip of land between the great river and the 
swamp was cut up into walled enclosures, as a 
rule, — abandoned warehouses and cotton-presses, 
moss-grown one-storied frame structures, stand- 
ing in the midst of desolate fields and decrepit 
fences. Only among the peaceful shades of 
the Hrsuline convent and the warlike flanking 
towers at the barracks was there aught that 
spoke of anything but demoralization and decay. 
Back from the levee a block or two the double 
lines of strap-iron stretched over a wooden 
causeway between parallel wet ditches gave 
evidence of some kind of a railway, on which, 
at rare intervals, jogged a sleepy mule with a 
sleepier driver and a musty old rattle-trap of a 
car, — a car butting up against the animal’s lazy 
hocks and rousing him occasionally to ringing 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


81 


and retaliatory kicks. Around the barracks the 
buildings were closer, mainly in the way of sa- 
loons ; then came a mile-long northward stretch 
of track, with wet fields on either side, fringed 
along the river by solid structures and walled 
enclosures that told of days more prosperous 
than those which so closely followed the war. 
It was to one of these graceless drinking-shops 
and into the hands of a rascally “ dago” known 
as Anatole that Mrs. Doyle commended her trio 
of allies, and being rid of them she turned back 
to her prisoner, their erstwhile companion. 
Absinthe wrought its work on his meek and 
pliant spirit, and the shaking hand was nerved 
to do the woman’s work. At her dictation, 
with such corrections as his better education 
suggested, two letters were draughted, and with 
these in her hand she went aloft. In fifteen 
minutes she returned, placed one of these letters 
in an envelope already addressed to Monsieur 
Armand Lascelles, ITo. — Due Doyale, the other 
she handed to Dawson. It was addressed in 
neat and delicate feminine hand to Colonel 
Braxton, Jackson Barracks. 

“ How, Dawson, ye can’t see her this day, and 
she don’t want ye till you can come over here 
/ 


82 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


sober. Off wid ye now to barracks. They’re 
all out at inspection yet, and will be for an hour. 
Lay this wid the colonel’s mail on his desk, and 
thin go you to your own. Come to me this 
afthernoon for more dhrink if ye can tell me 
what he said and did when he read it. No ! no 
more liquor now. That’ll brace ye till dinner- 
time, and more would make ye dhrunk.” 

Miserably he plodded away down the levee, 
while she, his ruler, throwing on a huge, dirty 
white sun-bonnet, followed presently in his 
tracks, and “ shadowed” him until she saw him 
safely reach the portals of the barracks after 
one or two fruitless scouts into wayside bars in 
hope of finding some one to treat or trust him 
to a drink. Then, retracing her steps a few 
blocks, she rang sharply at the lattice gate open 
ing into a cool and shaded enclosure, beyond 
which could be seen the white-pillared veranda 
of a long, low. Southern homestead. A grin 
ning negro boy answered the summons. 

“ It’s you, is it, Alphonse ? Is your mistress 
at home ?” 

‘‘ No ; gone town , — chez Madame dMervillyJ^ 

“Madame Devillease, is it? Very well; you 
skip to town wid that note and get it in your 


WARING^ S PERIL. 83 

master’s hands before the cathedral clock strikes 
twelve, or ye’ll sufter. There’s a car in free 
minutes.” 

And then, well content with her morning’s 
work, the consort of the senior first lieutenant 
of Light Battery “X” (a dame whose creden- 
tials were too clouded to admit of her reception 
or recognition within the limits of a regnlar 
garrison, where, indeed, to do him justice, Mr. 
Doyle never wished to see her, or, for that 
matter, anywhere else) betook herself to the 
magnolia-shaded cottage where she dwelt beyond 
the pale of military interference, and some hours 
later sent ’Louette to say to Doyle she wanted 
him, and Doyle obeyed. In his relief at finding 
the colonel had probably forgotten the pecca- 
dillo for which he expected punishment, in bliss- 
ful possession of Mr. Waring’s sitting-room and 
supplies now that Waring was absent, the big 
Irishman was preparing to spend the time in 
drinking his junior’s health and whiskey and 
discoursing upon the enormity of his miscon- 
duct with all comers, when Ananias entered 
and informed him there was a lady below who 
wished to see him, — “ lady” being the euphem- 
ism of the lately enfranchised for the females of 


84 WAKING'S PERIL. 

their race. It was ’Louette with the mandate 
from, her mistress, a mandate he dared not 
disregard. 

‘‘ Say ril be along in a minute,’’ was his 
reply, but he sighed and swore heavily, as 
he slowly reascended the stair. “ Grive me an- 
other dhrink, smut,” he ordered Ananias, dis- 
regarding Ferry’s suggestion, ‘‘ Better drink no 
more till after dark.” Then, swallowing his 
potion, he went lurching down the steps with- 
out another word. Ferry and Pierce stepped 
to the gallery and gazed silently after him as he 
veered around to the gate leading to the old 
war-hospital enclosure where the battery was 
quartered. Already his walk was perceptibly 
unsteady. 

“ Keeps his head pretty well, even after his 
legs are gone,” said Ferry. “ Knows too much 
to go by the sally-port. He’s sneaking out 
through the back gate.” 

‘‘ Why, what does he go out there for, when 
he has the run of Waring’s sideboard?” 

“ Oh, didn’t you hear ? Mrs. Doyle sent for 
him.” 

“ That’s it, is it ? Sometimes I wonder which 
one of those two will kill the other.” 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


S5 


“ Oh, he wouldn’t dare. That fellow is an 
abject coward in the dark. He believes in 
ghosts, spooks, banshees, and wraiths, — every- 
thing uncanny, — and she’d haunt him if he laid 
his hands on her. There’s only one thing that 
he’d be more afraid of than Bridget Doyle 
living, and that would be Bridget Doyle dead.” 

Why can’t he get rid of her ? What hold 
has she on him ? This thing’s an infernal scan- 
dal as it stands. She’s only been here a month 
or so, and everybody in garrison knows all 
about her, and these doughboys don’t make any 
bones about chaffing us on our lady friends.” 

^‘Well, everybody supposed he had got rid 
of her years ago. He shook her when he was 
made first sergeant, just before the war. Why, 
I’ve heard some of the old stagers say there 
wasn’t a finer-looking soldier in all the regiment 
than Jim Doyle when he married that specimen 
at Brownsville. Doyle, too, supposed she was 
dead until after he got his commission, then she 
reappeared and laid claim to him. It would 
have been an easy enough matter five years ago 
to prove she had forfeited all rights, but now he 
can’t. Then she’s got some confounded hold on 
him, I don’t know what, but it’s killing the poor 


86 


WARING^ S PERIL, 


beggar. Good thing for the regiment, though : 
so let it go.” 

“ Oh, I don’t care a rap how soon we’re rid 
of him or her, — the sooner the better ; only I 
hate to hear these fellows laughing and sneering 
about Mrs. Doyle.” And here the young fellow 
hesitated. “Ferry, you know I’m as fond of 
Sam Waring as any of you. I liked him better 
than any man in his class when we wore the 
gray. When they were yearlings we were 
plebes, and devilled and tormented by them 
most unmercifully day and night. I took to 
him then for his kindly, jolly ways. 'No one 
ever knew him to say or do a cross or brutal 
thing. I liked him more every year, and 
missed him when he was graduated. I rejoiced 
vhen he got his transfer to us. It’s because 
I like him so much that I hate to hear these 
fellows making their little flings now.” 

“ What flings ?” said Ferry. 

“Well, you know as much as I do. You’ve 
heard as much, too, I haven’t a doubt.” 

“ Nobody’s said anything about Sam Waring 
in my hearing that reflected on him in any way 
worth speaking of,” said Ferry, yet not very 
stoutly. 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


87 


“ N’ot on him so much, perhaps, as the world 
looks at this sort of thing, hut on her. She’s 
young, pretty, married to a man years her 
senior, a snufty, frowzy old Frenchman. She’s 
alone with her child and one or two servants 
from early morning till late evening, and with 
that weazened little monkey of a man the rest 
of the time. The only society she sees is the 
one or two gossipy old women of both sexes 
who live along the levee here. The only enjoy- 
ment she has is when she can get to her 
mother’s up in town, or run up to the opera 
when she can get Lascelles to take her. That 
old mummy cares nothing for music and still 
less for the dance ; she loves both, and so does 
Waring. Monsieur le Mari goes out into the 
foyer between the acts to smoke his cigaret e 
and gossip with other relics like himself. Wa- 
ring has never missed a night she happened to 
he there for the last six weeks. I admit he is 
there many a time when she is not, but after 
he’s had a few words with the ladies in the 
general’s box, what becomes of him? I don’t 
know, because I’m seldom there, but Dryden 
and Taggart and Jack Merton of the infantry 
can tell you. He is sitting by her in the D’Her- 


88 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


villy loge grilUe and going over the last act with 
her and rhapsodizing about Yerdi, Bellini, Mo- 
zart, or Gounod, — Gounod especially and the 
garden-scene from ‘ Faust.’ ” 

“Isn’t her mother with her, and, being in 
mourning, doesn’t she have to stay in her lat- 
ticed loge instead of promenading in the foyer 
and drinking that two-headaches-for-a-picayune 
punch ?” queried Ferry, eager for a diversion. 

“ Suppose she is,” answered Pierce, stoutly. 
“I’m a crank, — strait-laced, if you like. It’s 
the fault of my bringing up. But I know, and 
you know, that that little woman, in her loneli- 
ness and in her natural longing for some con- 
genial spirit to commune with, is simply falling 
madly in love with Sam Waring, and there will 
be tragedy here before we can stop it.” 

“ See here. Pierce,” asked Ferry, “ do you 
suppose Mrs. Cram would he so loyal a friend 
to Waring if she thought there was any- 
thing wrong in his attentions to Madame Las- 
celles ? Do you suppose Cram himself wouldn’t 
speak ?” 

“ He has spoken.” 

“ He has ? To whom ?” 

“To me, three days ago ; said I had known 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


89 


Waring longest and best, perhaps was his most 
intimate friend, and he thought I ought to warn 
him of what people were saying.” 

‘‘ What have you done ?” 

“ITothing yet: simply because I know Sam 
Waring so well that I know just what he’d do, 
— go and pull the nose of the man who gossiped 
about him and her. Then we’d have a fight on 
our hands.” 

“ Well, we can fight, I suppose, can’t we ?” 

“ it^ot without involving a woman’s name.” 

“ Oh, good Lord, Pierce, was there ever a row 
without a woman an fond 

“ That’s a worm-eaten witticism. Ferry, and 
you’re too decent a fellow, as a rule, to be 
cynical. Pve got to speak to Waring, and I 
don’t know how to do it. I want your ad- 
vice.” 

‘‘ Well, my advice is Punches : Don’t. Hello ! 
here’s Dryden. Thought you were on court 
duty up at head-quarters to-day, old man. 
Come in and have a wet?” Mr. Ferry had 
seen some happy days at Fortress Monroe when 
the ships of Her Majesty’s navy lay off the 
Hygeia and the gallants of England lay to at 
the bar, and Ferry rejoiced in the vernacular of 
8 * 


90 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


the United Service, so far as he could learn it, 
as practised abroad. 

‘‘ Thanks. Just had one over at Merton’s. 
Hear you’ve been having review and all that 
sort of thing down here,” said the infantryman, 
as he lolled back in an easy-chair and planted 
his boot-heels on the gallery rail. “ Glad I got 
out of it. Court met and adjourned at ten, so 
I came home. How’d Waring get off?” 

‘‘ Huh ! — Cram’s wagon,” laughed Ferry, 
rather uncomfortably, however. 

‘‘ Oh, Lord, yes, I know that. Didn’t I see 
him driving Madame Lascelles up Hampart 
Street as I came down in the mule-car ?” 

And then Pierce and Ferry looked at each 
other, startled. 

That evening, therefore, it was a comfort to 
both when Sam came tooling the stylish turnout 
through the sally-port and his battery chums 
caught sight of the Allertons. Pierce was just 
returning from stables, and Ferry was smoking 
a pipe of perique on the broad gallery, and both 
hastened to don their best jackets and doff 
their best caps to these interesting and inter- 
ested callers. Cram himself had gone off for 
a ride and a think. He always declared his 


WARING^S PERIL. 


91 


ideas were clearer after a gallop. The band 
played charmingly. The ladies came out and 
made a picturesque croquet-party on the green 
carpet of the parade. The officers clustered 
about and offered laughing wagers on the game. 
A dozen romping children were playing joy- 
ously around the tall flag-staff. The air was 
rich with the fragrance of the magnolia and 
Cape jasmine, and glad with music and soft and 
merry voices. Then the stirring bugles rang 
out their lively summons to the batterymen 
beyond the wall. The drums of the infantry 
rolled and rattled their echoing clamor. The 
guard sprang into ranks, and their muskets, 
glistening in the slanting beams of the setting 
sun, clashed in simultaneous “ present’’ to the 
red-sashed officer of the day, and that official 
raised his plumed hat to the lieutenant with the 
lovely girl by his side and the smiling elders on 
the back seat as the team once more made the 
circuit of the post on the back trip to town, 
and Miss Flora Allerton clasped her hands and 
looked enthusiastically up into her escort’s face. 

Oh,” she cried, “ isn’t it all just too lovely 
for anything! Why, I think your life here 
must be like a dream.” 


92 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


But Miss Allerton, as Mrs. Cram had said, 
sometimes gushed, and life at Jackson Barracks 
was no such dream as it appeared. 

The sun went down red and angry far across 
the tawny flood of the rushing river. The 
night lights were set at the distant bend below. 
The stars came peeping through a shifting filmy 
veil. The big trees on the levee and about the 
flanking towers began to whisper and complain 
and creak, and the rising wind sent long wisps 
of straggly cloud racing across the sky. The 
moon rose pallid and wan, hung for a while 
over the dense black mass of moss-grown cy- 
press in the eastward swamp, then hid her face 
behind a heavy bank of clouds, as though reluc- 
tant to look upon the wrath to come, for a storm 
was rising fast and furious to break upon and 
deluge old Jackson Barracks. 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


93 


CHAPTER IV. 

When Jeffers came driving into barracks on 
his return from town, his first care, as became 
the trained groom, was for his horses, and he 
was rubbing them down and bedding their stalls 
for the night when the sergeant of the battery 
guard, lantern in hand, appeared at the door. 
It was not ypt tattoo, but by this time the dark- 
ness was intense, the heavens were hid, and the 
wind was moaning about the stables and gun- 
shed and whistling away over the dismal ex- 
panse of fiat, wet, ditch-tangled fields towards 
the swamp. But the cockney’s spirits were 
blithe as the clouds were black. As was usual 
when he or any other servitor was in attendance 
on Waring, the reward had been munifi(ient. 
He had lunched at Cassidy’s at the lieutenant’s 
expense while that officer and his friends were 
similarly occupied at the more exclusive Mo- 
reau’s. He had stabled the team at the quarter- 
master’s while he had personally attended the 


94 


WARIN&S PERIL. 


matMe at the St. Charles, which was more to 
his taste than Booth and high tragedy. He had 
sauntered about the Tattersalls and smoked 
Waring’s cigars and patronized the jockeys 
gathered there for the spring meeting on the 
Metairie, hut promptly on time was awaiting the 
return of the party from their drive and lolling 
about the ladies’ entrance to the St. Charles 
Hotel, when he became aware, as the lamps 
were being lighted and the dusk of the evening 
gave place to lively illumination, that two men 
had passed and repassed the open portals sev- 
eral times, and that they were eying him curi- 
ously, and chattering to each other in French. 
One of them he presently recognized as the 
little “ frog-eater” who occupied the old house 
on the levee, Lascelles, the husband of the 
pretty Frenchwoman he and the lieutenant had 
dragged out of the mud that very morning and 
had driven up to the old D’Hervilly place on 
Rampart Street. Even as he was wondering 
how cabby got out of his scrape and chuckling 
with satisfaction over the scientific manner in 
which Mr. Waring had floored that worthy, 
Mr. Jeffers was surprised to find himself most 
civilly accosted by old Lascelles, who had been 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


95 


informed, he said, by Madame his wife, of the 
heroic services rendered her that morning by 
Monsieur Jeffers and Monsieur le Capitaine. 
He begged of the former the acceptance of the 
small douceur which he slipped into the English- 
man’s accustomed palm, and inquired when he 
might hope to see the brave captain and dis- 
embarrass himself of his burden of gratitude. 

‘‘ Here they come now,” said Jeffers, promptly 
pocketing the money and springing forward to 
knuckle his hat-brim and stand at the horses’ 
heads. All grace and animation, Mr. Waring 
had assisted his friends to alight, had promised 
to join them in the ladies’ parlor in ten minutes, 
had sprung to the seat again, signalling Jeffers 
to tumble up behind, and then had driven 
rapidly away through Carondelet Street to the 
broad avenue beyond. Here he tossed the reins 
to Jeffers, disappeared a moment, and came 
back with a little Indian-made basket filled to 
overflowing with exquisite double violets rich 
with fragrance. 

“ Give this to Mrs. Cram for me, and tell the 
captain I’ll drop in to thank him in a couple of 

hours, and Here, Jeffers,” he said, and 

Jeffers had pocketed another greenback, and 


96 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


had driven briskly homeward, well content with 
the result of his day’s labors, and without hav- 
ing mentioned to Mr. Waring the fact that 
Lascelles had been at the hotel making inquiries 
for him. A day so profitable and so pleasant 
Jeflers had not enjoyed since his arrival at the 
barracks, and he was humming away in high 
good humor, all reckless of the rising storm, 
when the gruff voice of Sergeant Schwartz dis- 
turbed him : 

‘‘ Chewers, you will rebort at vonst to Cap- 
tain Cram.” 

‘‘ Who says I will ?” said J offers, cheerfully, 
though bent on mischief, but was awed into 
instant silence at seeing that veteran step 
quickly back, stand attention, and raise his hand 
in salute, for there came Cram himself, Pierce 
with him. 

“Did Mr. Waring come back with you?” was 
the first question. 

“1^0, sir; Hi left Mr. Warink on Canal 
Street. ’E said ’e’d be back to thank the capt’in 
in a little while, sir, and ’e sent these for the 
capt’in’s lady.” 

Cram took the beautiful basket of violets with 
dubious hand, though his eyes kindled when 


WARING'S PERIL. 


97 


he noted their profusion and fragrance. ISTell 
loved violets, and it was like Waring to remem- 
ber so bountifully her fondness for them. 

‘‘ What detained him ? Did he send no 
word ?” 

“ ’E said nothink, and sent nothink but the 
basket, sir. ’E said a couple of hours, now 
I think of it, sir. ’E was going back to the 
’otel to dine with a lady and gent.” 

For a moment Cram was silent. He glanced 
at Pierce, as much as to say. Have you no ques- 
tion to ask? but the youngster held his peace. 
The senior officer hated to inquire of his servant 
into the details of the day’s doings. He was 
more than half indignant at Waring for having 
taken such advantage of even an implied per- 
mission as to drive off with his equipage and 
groom in so summary a way. Of course Hell 
had said. Take it and go, but Hell could have 
had no idea of the use to which, the wagon was 
to be put. If Waring left the garrison with the 
intention of using the equipage to take Madame 
Lascelles driving, it was the most underhand 
and abominable thing he had ever heard of his 
doing. It was unlike him. It couldn’t be true. 
Yet had not Braxton shown him the letter 


E g 


9 


98 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


which said he was seen on the levee with her 
by his side ? Had not Dryden further informed 
every man and woman and child with whom he 
held converse during the day that he had seen 
Waring with Cram’s team driving Madame Las- 
cell es up Rampart Street, and was not there a 
story already afloat that old Lascelles had for- 
bidden him ever to darken his threshold again, 
— forbidden Madame to drive, dance, or even 
speak with him ? And was there not already in 
the post commander’s hand a note intimating 
that Monsieur Lascelles would certainly chal- 
lenge Waring to instant and mortal combat if 
Waring had used the wagon as alleged ? Jeflers 
must knew about it, and could and should tell 
if required, but Cram simply could not and 
would not ask the groom to detail the move- 
ments of the gentleman. Had not Waring sent 
word he would be home in two hours and would 
come to see his battery commander at once? 
Did not that mean he would explain fully? 
Cram gulped down the query that rose to his 
lips. 

“ All right, then. Pierce ; we’ll take these 
over to Mrs. Cram and have a bite ready for 
Waring on his return,” said the stout-hearted 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 99 

fellow, and, in refusing to question his servant, 
missed the chance of averting catastrophe. 

And so they bore the beautiful cluster of 
violets, with its mute pledge of fidelity and full 
explanation, to his rejoicing I^ell, and the trio 
sat and chatted, and one or two visitors came in 
for a while and then scurried home as the rain 
began to plash on the windows, and the bugles 
and drums and fifes sounded far away at tattoo 
and more than usually weird and mournful at 
taps, and finally ten-thirty came, by which time 
it had been raining torrents, and the wind was 
lashing the roaring river into foam, and the 
trees were bowing low before their master, and 
the levee road was a quagmire, and Cram felt 
convinced no cab could bring his subaltern 
home. Yet in his nervousness and anxiety he 
pulled on his boots, threw his gum coat over his 
uniform, tiptoed in to bend over l^elhs sleeping 
form and whisper, should she wake, that he was 
going only to the sally-port or perhaps over to 
Waring’s quarters, but she slept peacefully and 
never stirred, so noiselessly he slipped out on 
the gallery and down the stairs and stalked 
boldly out into the raging storm, guided by the 
dim light burning in Waring’s room. Ananias 


ICO 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


was sleeping curled up on a rug in front of the 
open fireplace, and Cram stirred him up with 
his foot. The negro rolled lazily over, with a 
stretch and yawn. 

‘‘ Did Mr. Waring take any arms with him ?” 
i^ueried the captain. 

“ Any whut, suh ?” responded Ananias, rub- 
bing his eyes and still only half awake. 

“ Any pistol or knife V’ 

‘^Lord, suh, no. Mr. Waring don’t never 
carry anything o’ dat sort.” 

A student-lamp was burning low on the 
centre-table. There lay among the books and 
papers a couple of letters, evidently received 
that day, and still unopened. There lay Wa- 
ring’s cigar-case, a pretty trifle given him by 
some far-away friend, with three or four fra- 
grant Havanas temptingly visible. There lay 
a late magazine, its pages still uncut. Cram 
looked at the dainty wall clock, ticking mer- 
rily away over the mantel. Eleven-thirty-five! 
Well, he was too anxious to sleep anyhow, why 
not wait a few minutes? Waring might come, 
probably would come. If no cab could make 
its way down by the levee road, there were the 
late cars from town ; they had to make the effort 


WARING^S PERIL. 


101 


anyhow. Cram stepped to the sideboard, mixed 
a mild toddy, sipped it reflectively, then lighted 
a cigar and threw himself into the easy-chair. 
Ananias, meantime, was up and astir. Seeing 
that Cram was looking about in search of a 
paper-cutter, the hoy stepped forward and bent 
over the table. 

De lieutenant always uses dis, sub,” said he, 
lifting first one paper, then another, searching 
under each. “ Don’t seem to be yer now, sub. 
You’ve seen it, dough, captain, — dat cross- 
handled dagger wid de straight blade.” 

“Yes, I know. Where is it?” asked Cram. 
“ That’ll do.” 

“Tain’t yer, sub, now. Can’t find it yer, 
nohow.” 

“ Well, then, Mr. Waring probably took a 
knife, after all.” 

“ Yo, suh, I don’t t’ink so. I never knowed 
him to use it befo’ away from de room.” 

“ Anybody else bebn here ?” said Cram. 

“ Oh, dey was all in yer, suh, dis arternoon, 
but Mr. Doyle he was sent for, suh, and had to 
go.” 

A step and the rattle of a sword were heard 
on the gallery without. The door opened, and 
9 * 


102 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


in came Merton of the infantry, officer of the 
day. 

“Hello, Waring!’’ he began. “Oh, it’s yon, 
is it, captain? Isn’t Waring back? I saw the 
light, and came up to chin with him a moment. 
Beastly night, isn’t it ?” 

“Waring isn’t back yet. I look for him 
by the eleven-thirty car,” answered the cap- 
tain. 

“ Why, that’s in. Ho Waring there, but half 
a dozen poor devils, half drowned and half 
drunk, more’n half drunk, one of your men 
among ’em. We had to put him into the guard- 
house to keep him from murdering Dawson, the 
head-quarters clerk. There’s been some kind 
of a row.” 

“ Sorry to hear that. Who is the man ?” 

“ Kane. He said Dawson was lying about his 
officer and he wouldn’t stand it.” 

“Kane!’^ exclaimed Cram, rising. “Why, 
he’s one of our best. I never heard of his being 
riotous before.” 

“He’s riotous enough to-night. He wanted 
to lick all six of our fellows, and if I hadn’t got 
there when I did they would probably have 
kicked him into a pulp. All were drunk; 


WARING^S PERIL, 103 

Kane, too, I should say ; and as for Dawson, he 
was just limp.” 

“Would you mind going down and letting 
me talk with Kane a moment ? I never knew 
him to be troublesome before, though he some- 
times drank a little. He was on pass this 
evening.” 

“ Well, it’s raining cats and dogs, captain, hut 
come along. If you can stand it I can.” 

A few minutes later the sergeant of the guard 
threw open one of the wooden compartments 
in the guard-house, and there sat Kane, his face 
buried in his hands. 

“ I ordered him locked in here by himself, be- 
cause I feared our fellows would hammer him 
if he were turned in with them,” explained Mr. 
Merton, and at sound of the voice the prisoner 
looked up and saw his commander, dripping 
with wet. Unsteadily he rose to his feet; 

“ Captain,” he began, thickly, “ I’d never 
have done it in the world, sir, but that black- 
guard was drunk, sir, and slandering my officer, 
and I gave him fair warning to quit or I’d hit 
him, hut he kept on.” 

“ Ye-es ? And what did he say ?” 

“ He said — ^I wouldn’t believe it, sir — that Mr. 


104 


WARIN&S PERIL. 


Doyle was that drunk that him and some other 
fellers had lifted him out of the mud and put 
him to bed up there at — up there at the house, 
sir, back of Anatole’s place. I think the captain 
knows.” 

“Ah, you should have steered clear of such 
company, Kane. Did this happen at Anatole’s 
saloon ?” 

“Yes, sir, and them fellers was making so 
much noise that the dago turned them all out 
and shut up the shop at eleven o^clock, and 
that’s what made them follow me home in the 
car and abuse me all the way. I couldn’t stand 
it, sir.” 

“You would only have laughed at them if 
your better judgment hadn’t been ruined by 
liquor. Sorry for you, Kane, but you’ve been 
drinking just enough to be a nuisance, and must 
stay where you are for the night. They’ll be 
sorry for what they said in the morning. — Did 
you lock up the others, Mr. Merton ?” he asked, 
as they turned away. 

“ All but Dawson, sir. I took him over to 
the hospital and put a sentry over him. That 
fellow looks to be verging on jimjams, and I 
wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been talking as 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


105 


Kane says.” Merton might have added, “ and 
it’s probably true,” but courtesy to bis battery 
friend forbade. Cram did add mentally some- 
thing to the same effect, but loyalty to his arm 
of the service kept him silent. At the flag-staff 
the two officers stopped. 

“ Merton, oblige me by saying nothing as to 
the alleged language about Doyle, will you ?” 

‘‘ Certainly, captain. Good- night.” 

Then, as the officer of the day’s lantern flick- 
ered away in one direction. Cram turned in 
the other, and presently went climbing up the 
stairs to the gallery leading to the quarters of 
his senior first lieutenant. A dim light was 
shining through the shutters. Cram knocked 
at the door ; no answer. Opening it, he glanced 
in. The room was unoccupied. A cheap ma- 
rine clock, ticking between the north windows 
over the wash-stand, indicated midnight, and 
the battery commander turned away in vexation 
of spirit. Lieutenant Doyle had no authority to 
be absent from the post. 

It was still dark and storming furiously when 
the bugles of the battery sounded the reveille, 
and by the light of the swinging lanterns the 
men marched away in their canvas stable rig. 


106 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


looking like a column of gkosts. Yet, despite 
the gale and the torrents of rain, Pierce was in 
no wise surprised to find Cram at his elbow 
when the horses were led out to water. 

“ Groom in-doors this morning, Mr. Pierce. 
Is Waring home ?” 

‘‘ Yo, sir ; Ananias told me when he brought 
me up my coffee.” 

“ Hold the morning report, then, until I come 
to the office. I fear we have both first lieuten- 
ants to report absent to-day. You and I may 
have to go to town : so get your breakfast early. 
We will ride. I doubt if even an ambulance 
could get through. Tell me. Pierce, have you 
spoken to Waring about — about that matter we 
were discussing? Has he ever given you any 
idea that he had received warning of any kind 
from old Lascelles — or any of his friends ?” 

‘‘ Ho, sir. IVe had no chance to speak, to be 
sure, and, so far as I could observe, he and Mr. 
Lascelles seemed on very excellent terms only a 
few days ago.” 

‘‘ Well, I wish I had spoken myself,” said 
Cram, and turned away. 

That morning, with two first lieutenants ab- 
sent without leave, the report of Light Battery 


WAKING S PERIL. 


107 


“X” went into the adjutant’s office just as 
its commander and his junior subaltern went 
out and silently mounted the dripping horses 
standing in front. The two orderlies, with 
their heads poked through the slit of their pon- 
chos, briskly seated themselves in saddle, and 
then the colonel hurried forth just in time to 
hail, — 

“ Oh, Cram ! one minute.” And Cram reined 
about and rode to the side of the post com- 
mander, who stood under the shelter of the 
broad gallery. 

‘‘I wouldn’t say anything about this to any 
one at head-quarters except Reynolds. There’s 
no one else on the staff to whom Waring would 
apply, is there ?” 

“ Xo one, sir. Reynolds is the only man I 
can think of.” 

^‘Will you send an orderly hack with word 
as soon as you know ?” 

“Yes, sir, the moment I hear. And-d — shall 
I send you word from — there?” — and Cram 
nodded northward, and then, in a lower tone, — 
“ as to Doyle ?” 

“ Oh, damn Doyle ! I don’t care if he never 
” But here the commander of the post re- 


108 


WARING'S PERIL. 


gained control of himself, and with parting wave 
of the hand turned back to his office. 

Riding in single file up the levee, for the city 
road was one long pool, with the swollen river 
on their left, and the slanting torrents of rain 
obscuring all objects on the other hand, the 
party made its way for several squares without 
exchanging a word. Presently the leading fi.le 
came opposite the high wall of the Lascelles 
place. The green latticed gate stood open, — an 
unusual thing, — and both officers bent low over 
their pommels and gazed along the dark, rain- 
swept alley to the pillared portico dimly seen 
beyond. N*ot a soul was in sight. The water 
was already on a level with the banquette, and 
would soon be running across and into the gate. 
A vagabond dog skulking about the place gave 
vent to a mournful howl. A sudden thought 
struck the captain. He led the way down the 
slope and forded across to the north side, the 
others following. 

“Joyce,” said he to his orderly, “dismount 
and go in there and ring at the door. Ask if 
Mr. Lascelles is home. If not, ask if Madame 
has any message she would like to send to town, 
or if we can be of any service.” 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


109 


The soldier was gone but a moment, and came 
hurrying back, a negro boy, holding a long fold 
of matting over his head to shed the rain, 
chasing at his heels. It was Alphonse. 

“M’sieu’ not yet of return,” said he, in 
labored translation of his negro French, and 
Madame remain chez Madame d’Hervilly. I 
am alone wiz my mudder, and she has fear.” 

“ Oh, it’s all right, I fancy,” said Cram, 
reassuringly. “ They were caught by the storm, 
and wisely stayed up-town. I saw your gate 
open, so we stopped to inquire. We’ll ride over 
to Madame d’Hervilly’s and ask for them. How 
came your gate open ?” 

Mo connais pas ; I dunno, sare. It was lock’ 
last night.” 

Why, that’s odd,” said Cram. “ Better 
bolt it now, or all the cattle along the levee will 
be in there. You can’t lock out the water, 
though. Who had the key besides Mr. Lascelles 
or Madame ?” 

“ bTobody, sare ; but there is muddy foots all 
over the piazza.” 

The devil ! I’ll have to look in for a mo- 
ment.” 

A nod to Pierce brought him too from the 
10 


110 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


saddle, and the officers handed their reins to 
the orderlies. Then together they entered the 
gate, and strode up the white shell walk, look- 
ing curiously about them through the dripping 
shrubbery. Again that dismal howl was raised, 
and Pierce, stopping with impatient exclama- 
tion, tore half a brick from the yielding border 
of the walk and sent it hurtling through the 
trees. With his tail between his legs, the brute 
darted from behind a sheltering bush, scurried 
away around the corner of the house, glancing 
fearfully back, then, halting at safe distance^ 
squatted on his haunches and lifted up his 
mournful voice again. 

‘‘ Whose dog is that demanded Cram. 

‘‘ M’sieu’ Philippe’s : he not now here. He is 
de brudder to Monsieur.” 

At the steps the captain bent and closely 
examined them and the floor of the low veranda 
to which they led. Both were disfigured with 
muddy footprints. Pierce would have gone 
still further in the investigation, but his senior 
held up a warning hand. 

“ Two men have been here,” he muttered. 
“ They have tried the door and tried the blinds. 
— Where did you sleep last night, boy?” and 


WARINQ^S PERIL. Ill 

with the words he turned suddenly on the negro. 
“ Did you hear no sound 

“No, sare. I sleep in my bed, — Vay back. 
No, I hear noting, — noting.” And now the 
negro’s face was twitching, his eyes staring. 
Something in the soldier’s stern voice told him 
that there was tragedy in the air. 

“ If this door is locked, go round and open 
it from within,” said Cram, briefly. Then, as 
Alphonse disappeared around the north side, he 
stepped hack to the shell walk and followed one 
of its branches around the other. An instant 
later Pierce heard him call. Hastening in his 
wake, the youngster came upon his captain 
standing under a window, one of whose blinds 
was hanging partly open, water standing in pools 
all around him. 

“Look here,” was all he said, and pointed 
upward. 

The sill was above the level of their heads, 
but both could see that the sash was raised. 
All was darkness within. 

“ Come with me,” was Cram’s next order, and 
the lieutenant followed. Alphonse was unlock- 
ing the front door, and now threw it open. 
Cram strode into the wide hall-way straight to a 


112 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


door of the east side. It was locked. “ Open 
this, Alphonse,” he said. 

“ I have not the key. It is ever with M’sieu’ 
Lascelles. It is his library.” 

Cram stepped back, gave one vigorous kick 
with a heavy riding-boot, and the frail door 
flew open with a crash. For a moment the 
darkness was such that no object could be* dis- 
tinguished within. The negro servant hung 
back, trembling from some indefinable dread. 
The captain, his hand on the door-knob, stepped 
quickly into the gloomy apartment. Pierce close 
at his heels. A broad, flat-topped desk stood in 
the centre of the room. Some shelves and books 
were dimly visible against the wall. Some of 
the drawers of the desk were open, and there 
was a litter of papers on the desk, and others 
were strown in the big rattan chair, some on 
the floor. Two student-lamps could be dimly 
distinguished, one on the big desk, another on a 
little reading-table placed not far from the south 
window, whose blinds, half open, admitted 
almost the only light that entered the room. 
With its head near this reading-table and faintly 
visible, a bamboo lounge stretched its length 
towards the southward windows, where all was 


WARING^S PERIL. 


113 


darkness, and something vague and indistin- 
guishable lay extended upon the lounge. Cram 
marched half-way across the floor, then stopped 
short, glanced down, and stepped quickly to one 
side, shifting his heavily-booted feet as though 
to avoid some such muddy pool as those en- 
countered without. 

“ Take care,” he whispered, and motioned 
warningly to Pierce. Come here and open 
these shutters, Alphonse,” were the next words. 
But once again that prolonged, dismal, mourn- 
ful howl was heard under the south window, 
and the negro, seized with uncontrollable panic, 
turned back and clung trembling to the opposite 
wall. 

Send one of the men for the post surgeon 
at once, then come back here,” said the cap- 
tain, and Pierce hastened to the gate. As he 
returned, the west shutters were being thrown 
open. There was light when he re-entered the 
room, and this was what he saw. On the China 
matting, running from underneath the sofa, fed 
by heavy drops from above, a dark wet stain. 
On the lounge, stretched at full length, a stif- 
fening human shape, a yellow-white, parch- 
ment-like face above the black clothing, a bluish, 
A 10* 


114 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


half-opened mouth whose yellow teeth showed 
savagely, a fallen chin and jaw, covered with the 
gray stubble of unshaved beard, and two staring, 
sightless, ghastly eyes fixed and upturned as 
though in agonized appeal. Stone-dead, — mur- 
dered, doubtless, — all that was left of the little 
Frenchman Lascelles. 


WARING^S PERIL. 


llu 


CHAPTER Y. 

All that day the storm raged in fury; the 
levee road was blocked in places by the boughs 
torn from overhanging trees, and here, there, 
and everywhere turned into a quagmire by the 
torrents that could find no adequate egress to 
the northward swamps. For over a mile above 
the barracks it looked like one vast canal, and 
by nine o’clock it was utterly impassable. Ho 
cars were running on the dilapidated road to the 
half-way house,” whatever they might be doing 
beyond. There was only one means of commu- 
nication between the garrison and the town, and 
that, on horseback along the crest of the levee, 
and people in the second-story windows of the 
store- and dwelling-houses along the other side, 
of the way, driven aloft by the drenched con- 
dition of the ground fioor, were surprised to see 
the number of times some Yankee soldier or 
other made the dismal trip. Cram, with a party 
of four, was perhaps the first. Before the drip- 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


ii6 

ping sentries of the old guard were relieved at 
nine o’clock every man and woman at the bar- 
racks was aware that foul murder had been done 
during the night, and that old Lascelles, slain 
by some unknown hand, slashed and hacked in 
a dozen places, according to the stories afloat, 
lay in his gloomy old library up the levee road, 
with a flood already a foot deep wiping out from 
the grounds about the house all traces of his 
assailants. Dr. Denslow, in examining the body, 
found just one deep, downward stab, entering 
above the upper rib and doubtless reaching the 
heart, — a stab made by a long, straight, sharp, 
two-edged blade. He had been dead evidently 
some hours when discovered by Cram, who had 
now gone to town to warn the authorities, old 
Brax meantime having taken upon himself the 
responsibility of placing a guard at the house, 
with orders to keep Alphonse and his mother in 
and everybody else out. 

It is hardly worth while to waste time on the 
various theories advanced in the garrison as to 
the cause and means of the dreadful climax. 
That Doyle should be away from the post 
provoked neither comment nor speculation : ho 
was not connected in any way with the tragedy. 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


117 


But tlie fact that Mr. Waring was absent all 
night, coupled with the stories of his devotions 
to Madame, was to several minds jprima facie 
evidence that his was the bloody hand that 
wrought the deed, — that he was now a fugitive 
from justice, and Madame Lascelles, beyond 
doubt, the guilty partner of his flight. Every- 
body knew by this time of their being together 
much of the morning: how could people help 
knowing, when Dryden had seen them ? In his 
elegantly jocular way, Dryden was already con- 
doling with Ferry on the probable loss of his 
Hatfield clothes, and comforting him with the 
assurance that they always gave a feller a new 
black suit to be hanged in, so he might get his 
duds back after all, only they milst get Waring 
first. Jeffers doubtless would have been besieged 
with questions but for Cram’s foresight : his mas- 
ter had ordered him to accompany him to town. 

In silence a second time the little party rode 
away, passing the flooded homestead where lay 
the murdered man, then, farther on, gazing in 
mute curiosity at the closed shutters of the 
premises some infantry satirists had already 
christened ‘Hhe dove-cot.” What cared they 
for him or his objectionable helpmate? Still, 


118 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


they could not but note how gloomy and de- 
serted it all appeared, with two feet of water 
lapping the garden wall. Summoned by his 
master, Jeffers knuckled his oil-skin hat-brim 
and pointed out the spot where Mr. Waring 
stood when he knocked the cabman into the 
mud, but Jeffers’s tongue was tied and his 
cockney volubility gone. The tracks made by 
Cram’s wagon up the slope were already washed 
out. Bending forward to dodge the blinding 
storm, the party pushed along the embankment 
until at last the avenues and alleys to their right 
gave proof of better drainage. At Rampart 
Street they separated. Pierce going on to re- 
port the tragedy to the police. Cram turning to 
his right and following the broad thoroughfare 
another mile, until Jeffers, indicating a big, old- 
fashioned, broad-galleried Southern house stand- 
ing in the midst of grounds once trim and hand- 
some, but now showing signs of neglect and 
penury, simply said, “ ’Ere, sir.” And here the 
party dismounted. 

Cram entered the gate and pulled a clanging 
bell. The door was almost instantly opened by 
a colored girl, at whose side, with eager joyous 
face, was the pretty child he had seen so often 


WARING^ S PERIL. 119 

playing about the Lascelles homestead, and the 
eager joyous look faded instantly away. 

“ She t’ink it M’sieur Vareeng who comes to 
arrive,” explained the smiling colored girl. 

Ah ! It is Madame d’Hervilly I wish to 
see,” answered Cram, briefly. “ Please take hei 
my card.” And, throwing otf his dripping rain- 
coat and tossing it to Jeffers, who had followed 
to the veranda, the captain stepped within the 
hall and held forth his hands to Mn Hin, 
begging her to come to him who was so good 
a friend of Mr. Waring. But she would not. 
The tears of disappointment were in the dark 
eyes as the little one turned and ran away. 
Cram could hear the gentle, soothing tones of 
the mother striving to console her child, — ^the 
one widowed and the other orphaned by the 
tidings he bore. Even then he noted how 
musical, how full of rich melody, was that soft 
Creole voice. And then Madame d’Hervilly 
appeared, a stately, dignified, picturesque gentle- 
woman of perhaps fifty years. She greeted him 
with punctilious civility, but with manner as 
distant as her words were few. 

I have come on a trying errand,” he began, 
when she held up a slender, jewelled hand. 


120 


WARING^S PERIL. 


Pardon. Permettez . — Madame Lascelles/’ she 
called, and before Cram could find words to 
interpose, a servant was speeding to summon 
the very woman he had hoped not to have to 
see. 

“ Oh, madame,” he murmured low, hurriedly, 
‘‘ I deplore my ignorance. I cannot speak 
French. Try to understand me. Mr. Lascelles 
is home, dangerously stricken. I fear the worst. 
You. must tell her.” 

’Ome ! Ld has ? C’est impossible” 

“It is true,” he burst in, for the swish of 
silken skirt was heard down the long passage. 

est mort, — mort” he whispered, mustering up 
what little French he knew and then cursing 
himself for an imbecile. 

‘‘Mort! 0 del!” The words came with a 
shriek of anguish from the lips of the elder 
woman and were echoed by a scream from be- 
yond. In an instant, wild-eyed, horror-stricken, 
Emilie Lascelles had sprung to her tottering 
mother’s side. 

“ When ? What mean you ?” she gasped. 

“ Madame Lascelles,” he sadly spoke, “ I had 
hoped to spare you this, but it is too late now. 
Mr. Lascelles was found lying Dn the sofa in h.u\ 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


121 


library this morning. He had died hours be- 
fore, during the night.” 

And then he had to spring and catch the 
fainting woman in his arms. She was still 
moaning, and only semi-conscious, when the old 
family doctor and her brother, Pierre d’Hervilly, 
arrived. 

Half an hour later Cram astonished the aides- 
de-camp and other bored staff officials by ap- 
pearing at the general loafing-room at head- 
quarters. To the chorus of inquiry as to what 
brought him up in such a storm he made brief 
reply, and then asked immediately to speak with 
the adjutant-general and Lieutenant Reynolds, 
and, to the disgust and mystification of all the 
others, he disappeared with these into an adjoin- 
ing room. There he briefiy told the former of 
the murder, and then asked for a word with the 
junior. 

Reynolds was a character. Tall, handsome, 
and distinguished, he had served throughout the 
war as a volunteer, doing no end of good work, 
and getting many a word of praise, but, as all 
his service was as a staff officer, it was his 
general who reaped the reward ol‘ his labors. 
He had risen, of course, to the rank of major in 


122 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


the staff in the volunteers, and everybody had 
prophesied that he would be appointed a major 
in the adjutant- or inspector-general’s depart- 
ment in the permanent establishment. But 
there were not enough places by any means, and 
the few vacancies went to men who knew better 
how to work for themselves. “ Take a lieuten- 
ancy now, and we will fix you by and by,” was 
the suggestion, and so it resulted that here he 
was three years after the war wearing the 
modest strap of a second lieutenant, doing the 
duties and accepting the responsibilities of a far 
higher grade, and being patronized by seniors 
who were as much his inferiors in rank as they 
were in ability during the war days. Everybody 
said it was a shame, and nobody helped to better 
his lot. He was a man whose counsel was valu- 
able on all manner of subjects. Among other 
things, he was well versed in all that pertained 
to the code of honor as it existed in the ante- 
bellum days, — ^had himself been out,” and, as 
was well known, had but recently officiated as 
second for an officer who had need of his ser- 
vices. He and Waring were friends from the 
start, and Cram counted on tidings of his absent 
subaltern in appealing to him. Great, therefore, 


WARINQ'S PERIL 


123 


was his consternation when in reply to his in- 
quiry Reynolds promptly answered that he had 
neither seen nor heard from Waring in over 
forty-eight hours. This was a facer. 

“ What’s wrong, Cram ?” 

‘‘ Read that,” said the captain, placing a 
daintily-written note in the aide-de-camp’s hand. 
It was brief, but explicit : 

Colonel Braxton : Twice have I warned 
you that the attentions of your Lieutenant 
Waring to Madame Lascelles meant mischief. 
This morning, under pretence of visiting her 
mother, she left the house in a cab, hut in 
half an hour was seen driving with Mr. Wa- 
ring. This has been, as I have reason to know, 
promptly carried to Monsieur Lascelles by peo- 
ple whom he had employed for the purpose. 
I could of told you last night that Monsieur 
Lascelles’s friend had notified Lieutenant Wa- 
ring that a duel would be exacted should he be 
seen with Madame again, and now it will cer- 
tainly come. You have seen fit to scorn my 
warnings hitherto, the result is on your head.” 
There was no signature whatever. 

Who wrote this rot ?” asked Reynolds. “ It 
seems to me I’ve seen that hand before.” 


124 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


‘‘ So have I, and pitched the trash into the 
fire, as I do everything anonymous that comes 
my way. But Brax says that this is the second 
or third, and he’s worried about it, and thinks 
there may he truth in the story.” 

“As to the duel, or as to the devotions to 
Madame ?” asked Reynolds, calmly. 

“ We-11, both, and we thought you would he 
most apt to know whether a fight was on. Wa- 
ring promised to return to the post at taps last 
night. Instead of that, he is gone, — God knows 
where, — and the old man, the reputed chal- 
lenger, lies dead at his home. Isn’t that ugly ?” 

Reynolds’s face grew very grave. 

“ Who last saw Waring, that you know of?” 

“My man Jefiers left him on Canal Street 
just after dark last night. He was then going 
to dine with friends at the St. Charles.” 

“ The Allertons ?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then wait till I see the chief, and I’ll go 
vith you. Say nothing about this matter yet.” 

Reynolds was gone but a moment. A little 
later Cram and the aide were at the St. Charles 
rotunda, their cards sent up to the Allertons’ 
rooms. Presently down came the bell-boy. 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


125 


Would the gentleman walk up to the parlor? 
This was awkward. They wanted to see Aller- 
ton himself, and Cram felt morally confident 
that Miss Flora Gwendolen would be on hand 
to welcome and chat with so distinguished a 
looking fellow as Reynolds. There was no help 
for it, however. It would be possible to draw 
ofi* the head of the family after a brief call 
upon the ladies. Just as they were leaving the 
marhle-fioored rotunda, a short, swarthy man in 
“pepper-and-salt’’ business suit touched Cram 
on the arm, begged a word, and handed him a 
card. 

“ A detective, — already ?” asked Cram, in 
surprise. 

“ I was with the chief when Lieutenant Pierce 
came in to report the matter,” was the brief re- 
sponse, “ and I came here to see your man. He 
is reluctant to tell what he knows without your 
consent. Could you have him leave the horses 
with your orderly below and come up here a 
moment ?” 

“ Why, certainly, if you wish ; but I can’t see 
why,” said Cram, surprised. 

“You will see, sir, in a moment.” 

And then Jefiers, with white, troubled face, 
11 * 


126 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


appeared, and twisted his wet hat-brim in 
nervous worriment. 

“E’ow what do you want of him?” asked 
Cram. 

“ Ask him, sir, who was the man who slipped 
a greenback into his hand at the ladies’ entrance 
last evening. What did he want of him ?” 

Jeffers turned a greenish yellow. His every 
impulse was to lie, and the detective saw it. 

“You need not lie, Jeffers,” he said, very 
quietly. “ It will do no good. I saw the men. 
I can tell your master who one of them was, and 
possibly lay my hands on the second when he is 
wanted ; but I want you to tell and to explain 
what that greenback meant.” 

Then Jeffers broke down and merely blub- 
bered. 

“ Hi meant no ’arm, sir. Hi never dreamed 
there was hanythink wrong. ’Twas Mr. Las- 
celles, sir. ’E said ’e came to thank me for 
’elping ’is lady, sir. Then ’e wanted to see Mr. 
Warink, sir.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me of this before?” 
demanded the captain, sternly. “You know 
what happened this morning.” 

“ Hi didn’t want to ’ave Mr. Warink suspected, 


WARING^S PERIL. 


127 


sir,” was poor Jeffers’s half-tearful explanation, 
as Mr. Allerton suddenly entered the little hall- 
way room. 

The grave, troubled faces caught his eye at 
once. 

‘‘ Is anything wrong?” he inquired, anxiously. 
“ I hope Waring is all right. I tried to induce 
him not to start, but he said he had promised 
and must go.” 

“ What time did he leave you, Mr. Allerton ?” 
asked Cram, controlling as much as possible the 
tremor of his voice. 

Soon after the storm broke, — about nine- 
thirty, I should say. He tried to get a cab 
earlier, but the drivers wouldn’t agree to go 
down for anything less than a small fortune. 
Luckily, his Creole friends had a carriage.” 

‘‘ His what ?” 

“His friends from near the barracks. They 
were here when we came down into the rotunda 
to smoke after dinner.” 

Cram felt his legs and feet grow cold and a 
chill run up his spine. 

“ Who were they ? Did you catch their 
names ?” 

“ Only one. I was introduced only as they 


128 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


were about to drive away. A little old fellow 
witb elaborate manners, — a Monsieur Lascelles.” 

“ And Waring drove away with him ?” 

“Yes, with him and one other. Seemed to 
be a friend of Lascelles. Drove off in a closed 
carriage with a driver all done up in rubber and 
oil-skin who said he perfectly knew the road. 
Why, what’s gone amiss 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


129 


CHAPTER VL 

And all day long the storm beat upon the 
substantial buildings of the old barracks and 
flooded the low ground about the sheds and 
stables. Drills for the infantry were necessarily 
suspended, several sentries, even, being taken 
ofi* their posts. The men clustered in the squad- 
rooms and listened with more or less credulity 
to the theories and confirmatory statements of 
fact as related by the imaginative or loquacious 
of their number. The majority of the officers 
gathered under the flaring lamp-lights at the 
sutler’s store and occupied themselves pretty 
much as did their inferiors in grade, though 
poker and punch — specialties of Mr. Finkbein, 
the sutler — lent additional color to the stories in 
circulation. 

From this congress the better element of the 
commissioned force was absent, the names, 
nationalities, and idiomatic peculiarities of 
speech of the individual members being iden- 


130 WARING^S PERIL. 

tical in most instances with those of their com- 
rades in arms in the ranks. “ Brax” had 
summoned Minor, Lawrence, Kinsey, and Dry- 
den to hear what the post surgeon had to say on 
his return, hut cautioned them to keep quiet. 
As a result of this precaution, the mystery of 
the situation became redoubled by one o’clock, 
and was intensified by two, when it was an- 
nounced that Private Dawson had attempted to 
break away out of the hospital after a visit from 
the same doctor in his professional capacity. 
People were tempted out on their galleries in 
the driving storm, and colored servants fiitted 
from kitchen to kitchen to gather or dispense 
new rumors, hut nobody knew what to make of 
it when, soon after two, an orderly rode in from 
town dripping with mud and wet, delivered a 
note to the colonel, and took one from him to 
Mr. Ferry, now sole representative of the offi- 
cers of Battery “ X” present for duty. Ferry 
in return sent the bedraggled horseman on to 
the battery quarters with an order to the first 
sergeant, and in about fifteen minutes a sergeant 
and two men, mounted and each leading a spare 
horse, appeared under Ferry’s gallery, and that 
officer proceeded to occupy one of the vacant 


WARING^S PERIL. 


131 


Baddies, and, followed by his party, went clatter- 
ing ont of the sally-port and splashing over to 
the levee. Stable-call sounded as usual at four 
o’clock, and, for the first time in the record of 
that disciplined organization since the devas- 
tating hand of Yellow Jack was laid upon it the 
previous year, no of&cer appeared to supervise 
the grooming and feeding. Two of them were 
at the post, however. Mr. Doyle, in arrest on 
charge of absence without leave, was escorted to 
hiB quarters about four-fifteen, and was promptly 
visited by sympathizing and inquisitive com- 
rades from the Hotel Fihkbein, while Mr. Ferry, 
who had eflected the arrest, was detained 
making his report to the post commander. 
Hight came on apace, the wind began to die 
away with the going down of the sun, the rain 
ceased to fall, a pallid moon began peering at 
odd intervals through rifts in the cloudy veil, 
when Cram rode splashing into barracks, worn 
with anxiety and care, at eleven o’clock, and, 
stopping only for a moment to take his wife in 
his arms and kiss her anxious face and shake his 
head in response to her eager query for news of 
Waring, he hurried down-stairs again and over 
to Doyle’s quarters. All was darkness there, 


132 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


but be never hesitated. Tramping loudly over 
the gallery, he banged at the door, then, turn- 
ing the knob, intending to burst right in, as 
was the way in the rough old days, was sur- 
prised to find the bolt set. 

“ Doyle, open. I want to see you at once.” 

All silence within. 

“ Doyle, open, or, if you are too drunk to get 
up. I’ll kick in the door.” 

A groan, a whispered colloquy, then the rat- 
tle of bolt and chain. The door opened about 
an inch, and an oily Irish voice inquired, — 
Hwat’s wanted, captfin ?” 

“You here?” exclaimed Cram, in disgust. 
“ What business have you in this garrison ? If 
the colonel knew it, you’d be driven out at the 
point of the bayonet.” 

“ Sure where should wife be but at her hus- 
band’s side whin he’s sick and sufferin’ ? Didn’t 
they root him out of bed and comfort this day 
and ride him down like a felon in all the storm ? 
Sure it was the doughboys’ orders, sir. I told 
Doyle the capt’in niver would have ” 

“ Oh, be quiet : I must see Doyle, and at 
once.” 

“ Sure he’s not able, capt’in. You know how 


WARIN&S PERIL. 133 

it is wid him : he’s that sinsitive he couldn’t 
bear to talk of the disgrace he’s hringin’ on the 
capt’in and the batthery, and I knowed he’d 
been dhrinkin’, sir, and I came back to look for 

him, but he’d got started, capt’in, and it’s ” 

Stop this talk ! He wasn’t drinking at all 
until you came back here to hound him. Open 
that door, or a file of the guard will.” 

‘‘ Och ! thin wait till I’m dressed, fur da- 
cency’s sake, capt’in. Sure I’ll thry and wake 
him.” 

And then more whispering, the clink of glass, 
maudlin protestation in Doyle’s thick tones. 
Cram banged at the door and demanded instant 
obedience. Admitted at last, he strode to the 
side of an ordinary hospital cot, over which the 
mosquito-bar was now ostentatiously drawn, and 
upon which was stretched the bulky frame of 
the big Irishman, his red, blear-eyed, bloated 
face half covered in his arms. The close air 
reeked with the fumes of whiskey. In her dis- 
tress lest Jim should take too much, the claim- 
ant of his name and protection had evidently 
been sequestrating a large share for herself. 

‘‘How on earth did you get here? Your 
house was flooded all day,” angrily asked Cram. 

12 


134 


WARING^S PERIL. 


Sure we made a raft, sir,-“*Louette and me, 
— and poled over to the levee, and I walked 
every fut of the way down to follow me hus- 
band, as I swore I would whin we was married, 
rd ’a’ come in Anatole’s boat, sir, but ’twas 
gone, — gone since last night. Did ye know 
that, capt’in ?” 

A groan and a feverish toss from the occupant 
of the narrow bed interrupted her. 

‘‘ Hush, Jim darlin’ ! Here’s the ■ capt’in to 
see you and tell you he’s come back to have you 
roighted. Sure how could a poor fellow be 
expected to come home in all that awful storm 
this mornin’, capt’in? ’Tis for not cornin’ the 
colonel had him under arrest ; but I tell him the 
capt’in ’ll see him through.” 

But Cram pushed her aside as she still inter- 
posed between him and the bed. 

Iloyle, look up and answer. Doyle, I say !” 

Again vehement protestations, and now an 
outburst of tears and pleadings, from the woman. 

‘‘ Oh, he can’t understand you, capt’in. Ah, 
don’t be hard on him. Only this mornin’ he 
was sayin’ how the capt’in reminded him of the 
ould foine days whin the officers was all gintle- 
men and soldiers. He’s truer to ye than all the 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


135 


rest of thim, sir. D’ye moind that, capt’in? 
Ye wouldn’t belave it, mahby, but there’s them 
that can tell ye Loot’nant Waring was no friend 
of yours, sir, and worse than that, if ould Las- 
celles could spake now — hut there’s thim left 
that can, glory be to God !” 

“ Oh, for God’s sake shut up !” spoke Cram, 
roughly, goaded beyond all patience. Doyle, 
answer me !” And he shook him hard. ‘‘ You 
were at the Pelican last night, and you saw Mr. 
Waring and spoke with him. What did he 
want of you ? Where did he go ? Who were 
with him? Was there any quarrel? Answer, 
I say ! Do you know ?” But maudlin moaning 
and incoherencies were all that Cram could 
extract from the prostrate man. Again the 
woman interposed, eager, tearful. 

“ Sure he was there, capt’in, he was there ; he 
told me of it whin I fetched him home last night 
to git him out of the storm and away from that 
place ; but he’s too dhrunk now to talk. Sure 
there was no gittin’ down here to barx for any- 
body. The cabman, sir, said no carriage could 
make it.” 

“ What cabman ? That’s one thing I want to 
know. Who is he ? What became of him ?” 


136 


waring^s peril. 


‘‘ Sure and how do I know, sir ? He was a 
quiet, dacent man, sir; the same that Mr. Wa- 
ring hate so cruel and made Jeffers kick and 
bate him too. I saw it all.” 

“And was he at the Pelican last night? I 
must know.” 

“ Sure he was indade, sir. Doyle said so 
whin I fetched him home, and though he can’t 
tell you now, sir, he told me thin. They all 
came down to the Pelican, sir. Waring and Las- 
celles and the other gintleman, and they had 
dhrink, and there was trouble between the 
Frenchman and Waring, — sure you can’t blame 
him, wid his wife goin’ on so wid the loot’nant 
all the last month, — and blows was struck, and 
Doyle interposed to stop it, sir, loike the gintle- 
man that he is, and the cab-driver took a hand 
and pitched him out into the mud. Sure he’d 
been dhrinkin’ a little, sir, and was aisy upset, 
but that’s all he knows. The carriage drove 
away, and there was three of thim, and poor 
Doyle got caught out there in the mud and in 
the storm, and ’twas me wint out wid Dawson 
and another of the byes and fetched him in. 
And we niver heerd of the murther at all at all, 
sir, until I came down here to-day^ that’s God’s 


WARING^S PERIL. 


137 


troot’, and lie’ll tell ye so whin he’s sober,” she 
ended, breathless, reckless of her descriptive 
confusion of Doyle and Divinity. 

And still the Irishman lay there, limp, soggy, 
senseless, and at last, dismayed and disheartened, 
the captain turned away. 

‘‘Promise to sober him up by reveille, and 
you may stay. But hear this : if he cannot 
answer for himself by that time, out you go in 
the battery cart with a policeman to take you to 
the calaboose.” And then he left. 

Ho sooner had his footsteps died away than 
the woman turned on her patient, now strug- 
gling to a sitting posture. 

“ Lie still, you thafe and cur, and swear you 
to every word I say, unless you’d hang in his 
place. Dhrink this, now, and go to slape, and 
be riddy to tell the story I give ye in the morn- 
in’, or may the knife ye drove in that poor 
mummy’s throat come hack to cut your coward 
heart out.” 

And Doyle, shivering, sobbing, crazed with 
drink and fear, covered his eyes with his hands 
and threw himself back on his hot and steaming 
pillow. 

The morning sun rose brilliant and cloudless 
12 * 


138 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


as the horses of the battery came forth from the 
dark interior of the stable and, after watering at 
the long wooden trough on the platform, were 
led away by their white-frocked grooms, each 
section to its own picket-line. Ferry, supervis- 
ing the duty, presently caught sight of the tall 
muscular form of his captain coming briskly 
around the corner, little Pierce tripping along 
by his side. Cram acknowledged the salute of 
the battery officer of the day in hurried fashion. 

“ Good-morning, Ferry,” he said. “ Tell me, 
who were there when you got Doyle away from 
that woman yesterday ?” 

“ Only the three, sir, — Mr. and Mrs. Doyle 
and the negro girl.” 

“ ITo sign of anybody else ?” 

“ None, sir. I didn’t go in the house at all. 
I rode in the gate and called for Doyle to come 
out. The woman tried to parley, hut I refused 
to recognize her at all, and presently Doyle 
obeyed without any trouble whatever, though 
she kept up a tirade all the time and said he 
was too sick to ride, and all that, but he wasn’t. 
He seemed dazed, but not drunk, — certainly not 
sick. He rode all right, only he shivered and 
crossed himself and moaned when he passed the 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


139 


Lascelles place, for that hound pup set up a 
howl just as we were opposite the gate. He 
was all trembling when we reached the post, 
and took a big drink the moment he got to his 
room.’’ 

“Ye-es, he’s been drinking ever since. I’ve 
just sent the doctor to see him. Let the cor- 
poral and one man of the guard go with the 
ambulance to escort Mrs. Doyle out of the gar- 
rison and take her home. She shall not stay.” 

“Why, she’s gone, sir,” said Ferry. “The 
guard told me she went out of the hack gate 
and up the track towards Anatole’s — going for 
all she was worth — just after dawn.” 

“ The mischief she has ! What can have 
started her ? Did you see her yourself. Sergeant 
Bennett?” asked the captain of a stocky little 
Irish soldier standing at the moment with 
drawn sabre awaiting opportunity to speak to 
his commander. 

“ Yes, sir,” and the sabre came flashing up to 
the present. “ She’d wint over to the hospital 
to get some medicine for the lieutenant just 
after our bugle sounded first call, and she came 
runnin’ out as I wint to call the officer of the 
day, sir. She ran hack to the lieutenant’s quar- 


140 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


ters ahead of me, and was up only a minute or 
two whin down she came again wid some bun- 
dles, and away she wint to the north gate, run- 
nin’ wild-like. The steward told me a moment 
after of Dawson’s escape.” 

“ Dawson ! escaped from hospital ?” 

“ Yes, sir. They thought he was all right last 
evening when he was sleeping, and took the 
sentry off, and at four this morning he was 
gone.” 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


141 


CHAPTEE VIL 

Forty-eight hours had passed, and not a trace 
had been found of Lieutenant Waring. The 
civil officers of the law had held grave converse 
with the seniors on duty at the barracks, and 
Cram’s face was lined with anxiety and trouble. 
The formal inquest was held as the flood sub- 
sided, and the evidence of the post surgeon was 
most important. About the throat of the mur- 
dered man were indubitable marks of violence. 
The skin was torn as by flnger-nails, the flesh 
bruised and discolored as by flercely-grasping 
Angers. But death, said the doctor, was caused 
by the single stab. Driven downward with sav- 
age force, a sharp-pointed, two-edged, straight- 
bladed knife had pierced the heart, and all was 
over in an instant. One other wound there was, 
a slashing cut across the stomach, which had let 
a large amount of blood, but might possibly not 
have been mortal. What part the deceased had 
taken in the struggle could only be conjectured. 


142 WARIN&S PERIL. 

A little five-chambered revolver which he habit- 
ually carried was found on the fioor close at 
hand. Two charges had been recently fired, for 
the barrel was black with powder; but no one 
had heard a shot. 

The bar-keeper at the Pelican could throw 
but little light on the matter. The storm had 
broken, he said, with sudden fury. The rain 
dashed in torrents against his western front, and 
threatened to beat in the windows. He called 
to the two men who happened to be seated at a 
table to assist him, and was busy trying to get 
up the shutters, when Lieutenant Doyle joined 
them and rendered timely aid. He had fre- 
quently seen Doyle before during the previous 
month. Mrs. Doyle lived in the old Lemaitre 
house in the block below, and he often supplied 
them with whiskey. They drank nothing but 
whiskey. As they ran in the side door they 
were surprised to see the lights of a carriage 
standing at the edge of the banquette, and the 
driver begged for shelter for his team, saying 
some gentlemen had gone inside. The bar- 
keeper opened a gate, and the driver put his 
horses under a shed in a paved court in the rear, 
then came in for a drink. Meantime, said the 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


148 


bar-keeper, whose name was Bonelli, three gen- 
tlemen who were laughing over their escape 
from the storm had ordered wine and gone into 
a private room, Doyle with them. The only one 
he knew was Monsieur Lascelles, though he had 
seen one of the others frequently as he rode by, 
and knew him to be an officer before Mr. Doyle 
slapped him on the back and hailed him as 
‘‘ Sammy, old buck !” or something like that. 
Mr. Doyle had been drinking, and the gentle- 
man whispered to him not to intrude just then, 
and evidently wanted to get rid of him, but Mr. 
Lascelles, who had ordered the wine, demanded 
to be introduced, and would take no denial, and 
invited Mr. Doyle to join them, and ordered 
more wine. And then Bonelli saw that Las- 
celles himself was excited by drink, — ^the first 
time he had ever noticed it in the year he had 
known him. The third gentleman he had never 
seen before, and could only say he was dark and 
sallow and did not talk, except to urge the 
driver to make haste, — they must go on ; but he 
spoke in a low tone with Mr. Lascelles as they 
went to the room, and presently the rain seemed 
to let up a little, though it blew hard, and the 
driver went out and looked around and then re- 


144 


WARING^S PERIL. 


turned to the private room where the gentlemen 
were having their wine, and there was some 
angry talk, and he came out in a few minutes 
very mad; said he wouldn’t he hired to drive 
that party any farther, or any other party, for 
that matter ; that no carriage could go down the 
levee ; and then he got out his team and drove- 
back to town; and then Bonelli could hear 
sounds of altercation in the room, and Mr. 
Doyle’s voice, very angry, and the strange gen- 
tleman came out, and one of the men who’d 
been waiting said he had a cab, if that would 
answer, and he’d fetch it right off, and by the 
time he got hack it was raining hard again, and 
he took his cab in under the shed where the 
carriage had been, and a couple of soldiers from 
the barracks then came in, wet and cold, and 
begged for a drink, and Bonelli knew one of 
them, called Dawson, and trusted him, as he 
often had done before. When Dawson heard 
Lieutenant Doyle’s drunken voice he said there’d 
be trouble getting him home, and he’d better 
fetch Mrs. Doyle, and while he was gone Las- 
celles came out, excited, and threw down a 
twenty-dollar bill and ordered more Krug and 
some brandy, and there was still loud talk, and 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


145 


when Boiielli carried in the bottles Doyle was 
sitting back in a chair, held down by the other 
officer, who was laughing at him, but neverthe- 
less had a knife in hand, — a long, sharp, two- 
edged knife, — and Doyle was calling him names, 
and was very drunk, and soon after they all 
went out into the rear court, and Doyle made 
more noise, and the cab drove away around the 
corner, going down the levee through the pour- 
ing rain, one man on the box with the driver. 
That was the last he saw. Then Mrs. Doyle 
came in mad, and demanded her husband, and 
they found him reeling about the dark court, 
swearing and muttering, and Dawson and she 
took him off between them. This must have 
been before eleven o’clock; and that was ab- 
solutely all he knew. 

Then Mr. Allerton had told his story again, 
without throwing the faintest light on the pro- 
ceedings; and the hack-driver was found, and 
frankly and fully told his : that Lascelles and 
another gentleman hired him about eight 
o’clock to drive them down to the former’s 
place, which they said was several squares above 
the barracks. He said that he would have to 
charge them eight dollars such a night anywhere 
Q k 13 


146 


WARING'S PERIL. 


below the old cotton-press, where the pavement 
ended. But then they had delayed starting 
nearly an hour, and took another gentleman 
with them, and when driven by the storm to 
shelter at the Pelican saloon, three squares 
below where the pavement ended, and he asked 
for his money, saying he dare go no farther in 
the darkness and the flood, the Frenchman 
wouldn’t pay, because he hadn’t taken them all 
the way. He pointed out that he had to bring 
another gentleman and had to wait a long time, 
and demanded his eight dollars. The other 
gentleman, whom he found to be one of the 
officers at the barracks, slipped a bill into his 
hand and said it was all he had left, and if it 
wasn’t enough he’d pay him the next time he 
came to town. But the others were very angry, 
and called him an Irish thief, and then the big 
soldier in uniform said he wouldn’t have a man 
abused because he was Irish, and Lieutenant 
Waring, as he understood the name of this 
other officer to be, told him, the witness,' to slip 
out and say no more, that he’d flx it all right, 
and that was the last he saw of the party, but 
he heard loud words and the sound of a scuffle 
as he drove away. 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


147 


And Madame d’Hervilly had given her testi- 
mony, which, translated, was to this effect. She 
had known the deceased these twenty years. 
He had been in the employ of her lamented 
husband, who died of the fever in ’55, and 
Monsieur had succeeded to the business, and 
made money, and owned property in town, 
besides the old family residence on the levee 
below. He was wedded to Emilie only a little 
while before the war, and lived at home all 
through, but business languished then, they had 
to contribute much, and his younger brother. 
Monsieur Philippe, had cost him a great deal. 
Philippe was an officer in the Zouaves raised in 
1861 among the French Creoles, and marched 
with them to Columbus, and was wounded and 
came home to be nursed, and Emilie took care 
of him for weeks and months, and then he went 
back to the war and fought bravely, and was 
shot again and brought home, and this time 
Monsieur Lascelles did not want to have him 
down at the house ; he said it cost too much to 
get the doctors down there : so he came un^er 
Madam e’s roof, and she was very fond of the 
boy, and Emilie would come sometimes and 
play and sing for him. When the war was 


148 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


over Monsieur Lascelles gave him money to go to 
Mexico with Maximilian, and when the French 
were recalled many deserted and came over 
to ITew Orleans, and Monsieur Lascelles was 
making very little money now, and had sold his 
town property, and he borrowed money of her 
to help, as he said, Philippe again, who came to 
visit him, and he was often worried by Philippe’s 
letters begging for money. Seven thousand 
dollars now he owed her, and only last week had 
asked for more. Philippe was in Key West to 
buy an interest in some cigar-business. Mon- 
sieur Lascelles said if he could raise three 
thousand to reach Philippe this week they 
would all make money, hut Emilie begged her 
not to, she was afraid it would all go, and on 
the very day before he was found dead he came 
to see her in the afternoon on Kampart Street, 
and Emilie had told her of Mr. Waring’s kind- 
ness to her and to Kin Kin, and how «he never 
could have got up after being dragged into the 
mud by that drunken cabman, and she begged 
me to explain the matter to her husband, who 
was a little vexed with her because of Mr. Wa- 
ring.” But he spoke only about the money, and 
did not reply about Mr. Waring, except that he 


WARING^ S PERIL. 


149 


would see him and make proper acknowledg- 
ment of his civility. He seemed to think only 
of the money, and said Philippe had written 
again and must have help, and he was angry at 
Emilie because she would not urge with him, 
and Emilie wept, and he went away in anger, 
saying he had business to detain him in town 
until morning, when he would expect her to he 
‘ready to return with him. 

Much of this testimony was evoked by 
pointed queries of the officials, who seemed 
somewhat familiar with Lascelles’s business and 
family affairs, and who then declared that they 
must question the stricken widow. Harsh and 
unfeeling as this may have seemed, there were 
probably reasons which atoned for it. She came 
in on the arm of the old family physician, look- 
ing like a drooping flower, with little Hin Hin 
clinging to her hand. She was so shocked and 
stunned that she could barely answer the ques- 
tions put to her with all courtesy and gentle- 
ness of manner. Ho, she had never heard of 
any quarrel between Monsieur Lascelles and his 
younger brother. Yes, Philippe had been nursed 
by her through his wounds. She was fond of 
Philippe, but not so fond as was her husband. 

13 * 


150 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


Mr. Lascelles would do anything for Philippe, 
deny himself anything almost. Asked if Mon- 
sieur Lascelles had not given some reason for 
his objection to Philippe’s being nursed at his 
house when he came home the second time, she 
was embarrassed and distressed. She said Phi- 
lippe was an impulsive boy, fancied himself in 
love with his brother’s wife, and Armand saw 
something of this, and at last upbraided him, but 
very gently. There was no quarrel at all. Was 
there any one whom Monsieur Lascelles had 
been angered with on her account ? She knew 
of none, but blushed, and blushed painfully. 
Had the deceased not recently objected to the 
attentions paid her by other gentlemen ? There 
was a murmur of reproach among the hearers, 
but Madame answered unflinchingly, though 
with painful blushes and tears. Monsieur Las- 
celles had said nothing of disapproval until very 
recently; au contraire, he had much liked Mr. 
Waring. He was the only one of the officers 
at the barracks whom he had ever invited to the 
house, and he talked with him a great deal; 
had never, even to her, spoken of a quarrel 
with him because Mr. Waring had been so polite 
to her, until within a week or two ; then — yes, he 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


151 


certainly had. Of her husband’s business affairs, 
his papers, etc., she knew little. He always had 
certain moneys, though not large sums, with all 
his papers, in the drawers of his cabinet, and 
that they should be in so disturbed a state was 
not unusual. They were all in order, closed 
and locked, when he started for town the morn- 
' ing of that fatal day, but he often left them 
open and in disorder, only then locking his 
library door. When she left for town, two 
hours after him, the library door was open, also 
the side window. She could throw no light on 
the tragedy. She had no idea who the stranger 
could be. She had not seen Philippe for nearly 
a year, and believed him to be at Key West. 

Alphonse, the colored boy, was so terrified by 
the tragedy and by his detention under the same 
roof with the murdered man that his evidence 
was only dragged from him. Kobody suspected 
the poor fellow of complicity in the crime, yet 
he seemed to consider himself as on trial. He 
swore he had entered the library only once dur- 
ing the afternoon or evening, and that was to 
close the shutters when the storm broke. He 
left a lamp burning low in the hall, according 
to custom, though he felt sure his master and 


152 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


mistress would remain in town over-night rather 
than attempt to come down. He had slept 
soundly, as negroes will, despite the gale and 
the roar of the rain that drowned all other 
noises. It was late the next morning when 
his mother called him. The old mammy was 
frightened to see the front gate open, the deep 
water in the streets, and the muddy footprints 
on the veranda. She called Alphonse, who 
found that his master must have come in during 
the night, after all, for the lamp was taken from 
the hall table, the library door was closed and 
locked, so was the front door, also barred within, 
which it had not been when he went to bed. 
He tapped at the library, got no answer, so tip- 
toed to his master’s bedroom ; it was empty and 
undisturbed. Heither had Madame nor Made- 
moiselle Wm Hill been to their rooms. Then 
he was troubled, and then the soldiers came and 
called him out into the rain. They could tell 
the rest. 

Cram’s story is already told, and he could add 
nothing. The officials tried to draw the battery- 
man out as to the relations existing between 
Lieutenant Waring and Madame, but got badly 
“bluffed.” Cram said he had never seen any- 


WARINQ'S peril. 


153 


thing in the faintest degree worthy of comment. 
Had he heard anything? Yes, but nothing 
worthy of consideration, much less of repetition. 
Had he not loaned Mr. Waring his team and 
carriage to drive Madame to town that morn- 
ing ? Ho. How did he get it, then ? Took it ! 
Was Monsieur Waring in the habit of helping 
himself to the property of his brother officers ? 
Yes, whenever he felt like it, for they never 
objected. The legal official thought such spirit 
of camaraderie in the light artillery must make 
life at the barracks something almost poetic, to 
which Cram responded, Oh, at times absolutely 
idyllic.” And the tilt ended with the civil func- 
tionary ruffied, and this was bad for the battery. 
Cram never had any policy whatsoever. 

Lieutenant Doyle was the next witness sum- 
moned, and a more God-forsaken-looking fellow 
never sat in a shell jacket. Still in arrest, 
physically, at the beck of old Braxton, and 
similarly hampered, intellectually, at the will of 
bold John Barleycorn, Mr. Doyle came before 
the civil authorities only upon formal subpoena 
served at post head-quarters. The post surgeon 
had straightened him up during the day, but 
was utterly perplexed at his condition. Mrs. 


154 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


Doyle’s appearance in the neighborhood some 
weeks before had been the signal for a series of 
sprees on the Irishman’s part that had on two 
occasions so prostrated him that Dr. Potts, an 
acting assistant surgeon, had been called in to 
prescribe for him, and, thanks to the vigorous 
constitution of his patient, had pulled him out 
in a few hours. But this time ‘‘ Pills the Less” 
had found Doyle in a state bordering on terror, 
even when assured that the quantity of his pota- 
tions had not warranted an approach to tremens. 
The post surgeon had been called in too, and 
“ Pills the Pitiless,” as he was termed, thanks to 
his unfailing prescription of quinine and blue 
mass in the shape and size of buckshot, having 
no previous acquaintance, in Doyle, with these 
attacks, poohpoohed the case, administered bro- 
mides and admonition in due proportion, and 
went olF about more important business. Dr. 
Potts, however, stood by his big patient, won- 
dering what should cause him to start in such 
terror at every step upon the stair without, and 
striving to bring sleep to eyes that had not 
closed the livelong night nor all the balmy, 
beautiful day. Once he asked if Doyle wished 
him to send for his wife, and was startled at the 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


165 


vehemei ce of the reply, “ For God’s sake, no !” 
and, shuddering, Doyle had hidden his face and 
turned away„ Potts got him to eat something 
towards noon, and Doyle .begged for more drink, 
hut was refused. He was sober, yet shattered, 
when Mr. Drake suddenly appeared just about 
stable-call and bade him repair at once to the 
presence of the commanding officer. Then 
Potts had to give him a drink, or he would 
never have got there. With the aid of a servant 
he was dressed, and, accompanied by the doctor, 
reached the office. Braxton looked him over 
coldly. 

“Mr. Doyle,” said he, “the civil authorities 

have made requisition for ” But he had 

got no further when Doyle staggered, and but 
for the doctor’s help might have fallen. 

“ For God’s sake, colonel, it isn’t true ! Sure 
I know nothing of it at all at all, sir. Indade, 
indade, I was blind dhrunk, colonel. Sure 
they’d swear a man’s life away, sir, just because 
he was the one — he was the one that ” 

“Be silent, sir. You are not accused, that I 
know of. It is as a witness you are needed. — 
Is he in condition to testify, doctor ?” 

“He is well enough, sir, to tell what he 


156 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


knows, but be claims to know nothing.’^ And 
this, too, Doyle eagerly seconded, but was sent 
along in the ambulance, with the doctor to keep 
him out cf mischief, and a parting shot to the 
eifect that when the coroner was through with 
him the post commander would take hold again, 
so the colonel depressed more than the cocktail 
stimulated, and, as luck would have it, almost 
the first person to meet him inside the gloomy 
enclosure was his wife, and her few whispered 
words only added to his misery. 

The water still lay in pools about the 
premises, and the police had allowed certain 
of the neighbors to stream in and stare at the 
white walls and shaded windows, but only a 
favored few penetrated the hall-way and rooms 
where the investigation was being held. Doyle 
shook like one with the palsy as he ascended 
the little fiight of steps and passed into the open 
door-way, still accompanied by ‘‘ Little Pills.” 
People looked at him with marked curiosit}^ 
He was questioned, re-questioned, cross-ques- 
tioned, but the result was only a hopeless tangle. 
He really added nothing to the testimony of the 
hack-driver and Bonelli. In abject remorse and 
misery he begged them to understand he was 


WARING^S PERIL. 


157 


drunk when he joined the party, got drunker, 
dimly remembered there was a quarrel, but he 
had no cause to quarrel with any one, and that 
was all ; he never knew how he got home. He 
covered his face in his shaking hands at last, 
and seemed on the verge of a fit of crying. 

But then came sensation. 

Quietly rising from his seat, the official who 
so recently had had the verbal tilt with Cram 
held forth a rusty, cross-hilted, two-edged knife 
that looked as though it might have lain in the 
mud and wet for hours. 

‘‘ Have you ever seen this knife before V’ he 
asked. And Boyle, lifting up his eyes one in- 
stant, groaned, shuddered, and said,— 

Oh, my God, yes V’ 

“ Whose property is it or was it ?” 

At first he would not reply. He moaned and 
shook. At last — 

“ Sure the initials are on the top,” he cried. 

But the official was relentless. 

“ Tell us what they are and what they 
represent.” 

People were crowding the hall- way and forcing 
themselves into the room. Cram and Ferry, 
curiously watching their ill-starred comrade, 
14 


158 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


had exchanged glances of dismay when the 
knife was so suddenly produced. N^ow they 
bent breathlessly forward. 

The silence for the moment was oppressive. 

“ If it’s the knife I mane,” he sobbed at last, 
desperately, miserably, ‘‘ the letters are S. B. W., 
and it belongs to Lieutenant Waring of our 
bathery.” 

But no questioning, however adroit, could 
elicit from him the faintest information as to 
how it got there. The last time he remembered 
seeing it, he said, was on Mr. Waring’s table 
the morning of the review. A detective testi- 
fied to having found it among the bushes under 
the window as the water receded. Ferry and 
the miserable Ananias were called, and they, 
too, had to identify the knife, and admit that 
neither had seen it about the room since Mr. 
Waring left for town. Of other witnesses 
called, came first the proprietor of the stable 
to which the cab belonged. Horse and cab, 
he said, covered with mud, were found under 
a shed two blocks below the French Market, 
and the only thing in the cab was a handsome 
silk umbrella, London make, which Lieutenant 
Pierce laid claim to. Mrs. Doyle swore that as 


WARING’ S PERIL. 


159 


Bhe was going in search of her husband she 
met the cab just below the Pelican, driving fu- 
riously away, and that in the flash of lightning 
she recognized the driver as the man whom 
Lieutenant Waring had beaten that morning on 
the levee in front of her place. A stranger was 
seated beside him. There were two gentlemen 
inside, but she saw the face of only one, — 
Lieutenant Waring. 

ISTobody else could throw any light on the 
matter. The doctor, recalled, declared the 
knife or dagger was shaped exactly as would 
have to be the one that gave the death-blow. 
Everything pointed to the fact that there had 
been a struggle, a deadly encounter, and that 
after the fatal work was done the murderer or 
murderers had left the doors locked and barred 
and escaped through the window, leaving the 
desk rifled and carrying away what money there 
was, possibly to convey the idea that it was only 
a vulgar murder and robbery, after all. 

Of other persons who might throw light upon 
the tragedy the following were missing: Lieu- 
tenant Waring, Private Dawson, the cabman, 
and the unrecognized stranger. So, too, was 
Anatole’s boat. 


160 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

When four days and nights had passed away 
without a word or sign from Waring, the gar- 
rison had come to the conclusion that those 
oflS.cers or men of Battery X” who still be- 
lieved him innocent were idiots. So did the 
civil authorities ; but those were days when the 
authorities of Louisiana commanded less respect 
from its educated people than did even the 
military. The police force, like the State, was 
undergoing a process called reconstruction, 
which might have been impressive in theory, 
but was ridiculous in practice. A reward had 
been offered by business associates of the de- 
ceased for the capture and conviction of the 
assassin. A distant relative of old Lascelles had 
come to take charge of the place until Monsieur 
Philippe should arrive. The latter’s address 
had been found among old Armand’s papers, 
and despatches, via Havana, had been sent to 
him, also letters. Pierre d’Hervilly had taken 
the weeping widow and little Xin Xin to bonne 


WARING'S PERIL, 


161 


maman^s to stay. Alphonse and his woolly- 
pated mother, true to negro superstitions, had 
decamped, l^othing would induce them to 
remain under the roof where foul murder had 
been done. “ De hahnts” was what they were 
afraid of. And so the old white homestead, 
though surrounded on every side by curiosity- 
seekers and prying eyes, was practically deserted. 
Cram went about his duties with a heavy heart 
and light aid. Ferry and Pierce both com- 
manded sections now, as Doyle remained in 
close arrest and ‘‘Pills the Less” in close at- 
tendance. Something was utterly wrong with 
the fellow. Mrs. Doyle had not again ventured 
to show her red nose within the limits of the 
“ barx,” as she called them, a hint from Braxton 
having proved sufficient ; but that she was ever 
scouting the pickets no one could doubt. Morn, 
noon, and night she prowled about the neigh- 
borhood, employing the “ byes,” so she termed 
such stray sheep in army blue as a dhrop of 
Anatole’s best would tempt, to carry scrawl- 
ing notes to Jim, one of which, falling with 
its postman by the wayside and turned over 
by the guard to Captain Cram for transmittal, 
was addressed to Mister Loot’nt James Doyle, 
I 14 * 


162 


WARINO'S PERIL. 


Lite Bothery X, Jaxun Barx, and brought the 
only laughter to his lips the big horse-artillery- 
man had known for nearly a week. Her cus- 
tomary Mercury, Dawson, had vanished from 
sight, dropped, with many another and often a 
better man, as a deserter. 

Over at Waring’s abandoned quarters the 
shades were drawn and the grQQn jalousies bolted. 
Pierce stole in each day to see that everything, 
even to the augmented heap of letters, was un- 
disturbed, and Ananias drooped in the court 
below and refused to be comforted. Cram had 
duly notified Waring’s relatives, now living in 
Xew York, of his strange and sudden disap- 
pearance, but made no mention of the cloud 
of suspicion which had surrounded his name. 
Meantime, some legal friends of the family were 
overhauling the Lascelles papers, and a dark- 
complexioned, thick-set, active little civilian was 
making frequent trips between department head- 
quarters and barracks. At the former he com- 
pared .notes with Lieutenant Eeynolds, and at 
the latter with Braxton and Cram. The last 
interview Mr. Allerton had before leaving with 
his family for the Xorth was with this same 
lively party, the detective who joined them that 


WARING'S PERIL. 


163 


night at the St. Charles, and Allerton, being a 
man of much substance, had tapped his pocket- 
book significantly. 

“ The difficulty just now is in having a talk 
with the widow,” said this official to Cram and 
Eeynolds, whom he had met by appointment 
on the Thursday following the eventful Satur- 
day of Braxton’s “ combined” review. She is 
too much prostrated. I’ve simply got to wait 
awhile, and meantime go about this other afiair. 
Is there no way in which you can see her ?” 

Cram relapsed into a brown study. Eeynolds 
was poring over the note written to Braxton 
and comparing it with one he held in his hand, 
— an old one, and one that told an old, old story. 
‘‘ I know you’ll say I have no right to ask this,” 
it read, ‘‘but you’re a gentleman, and I’m a 
friendless woman deserted by a worthless hus- 
band. My own people are ruined by the war, 
but even if they had money they wouldn’t send 
any to me, for I offended them all by marrying 
a Yankee officer. God knows I am punished 
enough for that. But I was so young and 
innocent when he courted me. I ought to of 
left — I would of left him as soon as I found out 
how good-for-nothing he really was, only I was 


164 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


80 mucli in love I couldn’t. I was fastenated, I 
suppose. I^ow I’ve sold everything, but if you’ll 
only lend me fifty dollars I’ll work my fingers 
to the bone until I pay it. For the old home’s 
sake, please do.” 

‘‘ It’s the same hand, — the same woman, 
Cram, beyond a doubt. She hied Waring for 
the old home’s sake the first winter he was in 
the South. He told me all about it two years 
ago in Washington, when we heard of her the 
second time. How she’s followed him over here, 
or got here first, tried the same game probably, 
met with a refusal, and this anonymous note is 
her revenge. The man she married was a 
crack-brained weakling who got into the army 
the fag end of the war, fell in love with her 
pretty face, married her, then they quarrelled, 
and he drank himself into a muddle-head. She 
ran him into debt; then he gambled away 
government funds, bolted, was caught, and 
would have been tried and sent to jail, hut some 
powerful relative saved him that, and simply 
had him dropped; — never heard of him again. 
She was about a month grass-widowed when 
Waring came on his first duty there. He had 
an uncongenial lot of brother officers for a two- 


waring^s peril. 


165 


company post, and really had known of this girl 
and her people before the war, and she appealed 
to him, first for sympathy and help, then charity, 
then blackmail, I reckon, from which his fever 
saved him. Then she struck some quarter- 
master or other and lived off him for a while ; 
drifted over here, and no sooner did he arrive, 
all ignorant of her presence in or around 'New 
Orleans, than she began pestering him again. 
When he turned a deaf ear, she probably threat- 
ened, and then came these anonymous missives 
to you and Braxton. Yours always came by 
mail, you say. The odd thing about the colo- 
nel’s — this one, at least — is that it was with his 
mail, but never came through the post-office.” 

That’s all very interesting,” said the little 
civilian, dryly, ‘‘but what we want is evidence 
to acquit him and convict somebody else of Las- 
celles’s death. What has this to do with the 
other?” 

“ This much : This letter came to Braxton by 
hand, not by mail, — by hand, probably direct 
from her. What hand had access to the office 
the day when the whole command was out at 
review? Certainly no outsider. The mail is 
opened and distributed on its arrival at nine 


166 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


o’clock by the chief clerk, or by the sergeant- 
major, if he happens to be there, though he’s 
generally at guard mount. On this occasion he 
was out at review. Leary, chief clerk, tells 
Colonel Braxton he opened and distributed the 
mail, putting the colonel’s on his desk; Boot 
was with him and helped. The third clerk 
came in later ; had been out all night, drinking. 
His name is Dawson. Dawson goes out again 
and gets fuller, and when next brought home is 
put in hospital under a sentry. Then he hears 
of the murder, bolts, and isn’t heard from since, 
except as the man who helped Mrs. Doyle to 
get her husband home. He is the fellow who 
brought that note. ' He knew something of its 
contents, for the murder terrified him, and he 
ran away. Find his trail, and you strike that 
of the woman who wrote these.” 

‘‘By the Lord, lieutenant, if you’ll quit the 
army and take my place you’ll make a name 
and a fortune.” 

“ And if you’ll quit your place and take mine 
you’ll get your coup de grace in some picayune 
Indian fight and be forgotten. So stay where 
you are; but find Dawson, find her, find what 
they know, and you’ll be famous.” 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


167 


CHAPTER IX. 

That night, or very early next morning, there 
was pandemonium at the barracks. It was 
clear, still, beautiful. A soft April wind was 
drifting up from the lower coast, laden with the 
perfume of sweet olive and orange blossoms. 
Mrs. Cram, with one or two lady friends and a 
party of officers, had been chatting in low tone 
upon their gallery until after eleven, hut else- 
where about the moonlit quadrangle all was 
silence when the second relief was posted. Far 
at the rear of the walled enclosure, where, in 
deference to the manners and customs of war as 
observed in the good old days whereof our se- 
niors tell, the sutler’s establishment was planted 
within easy bailing-distance of the guard-house, 
there was still the sound of modified revelry 
by night, and poker and whiskey punch had 
gathered their devotees in the grimy parlors of 
Mr. Finkbein, and here the belated ones tarried 
until long after midnight, as most of them were 


168 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


baclielors and had no better halves, as had 
Doyle, to fetch them home “out of the wet.’’ 
Cram and his lieutenants, with the exception 
of Doyle, were never known to patronize this 
establishment, whatsoever they might do out- 
side, They had separated before midnight, and 
little Pierce, after his customary peep into Wa- 
ring’s preserves, had closed the door, gone to 
his own room, to bed and to sleep. Ferry, as 
battery officer of the day, had made the rounds 
of the stables and gun-shed about one o’clock, 
and had encountered Captain Kinsey, of the 
infantry, coming in from his long tramp through 
the dew-wet field, returning from the inspection 
of the sentry-post at the big magazine. 

“ Ko news of poor Sam yet, I suppose ?” said 
Kinsey, sadly, as the two came strolling in to- 
gether through the rear gate. 

“Kothing whatever,” was Ferry’s answer. 
“We cannot even form a conjecture, unless he, 
too, has been murdered. Think of there being 
a warrant out for his arrest, — for him, Sam 
Waring!” 

“Well,” said Kinsey, “no other conclusion 
could be well arrived at, unless that poor brute 
Doyle did it in a drunken row. Pills says he 


waring^s peril. 


169 


never saw a man so terror-stricken as he seems 
to be. He’s afraid to leave him, really, and 
Doyle’s afraid to be alone, — thinks the old 
woman may get in.” 

She has no excuse for coming, captain,” 
said Ferry. ‘‘When she told Cram she must 
see her husband to-day, that she was out of 
money and starving, the captain surprised her 
by handing her fifty dollars, which is much 
more than she’d have got from Doyle. She 
took it, of course, but that isn’t what she 
wanted. She wants to get at him. She has 
money enough.” 

“Yes, that woman’s a terror. Ferry. Old 
Mrs. Murtagh, wife of my quartermaster ser- 
geant, has been in the army twenty years, and 
says she knew her well, — knew all her people. 
She comes from a tough lot, and they had a bad 
reputation in Texas in the old days. Doyle’s a 
totally different man since she turned up. Cram 
tells me. Hello! here’s ‘Pills the Less,”’ he 
suddenly exclaimed, as they came opposite the 
west gate, leading to the hospital. “ How’s your 
patient. Doc ?” 

“ Well, he’s sleeping at last. He seems worn 
out. It’s the first time I’ve left him, but I’m 


170 


WARING^ S PERIL. 


used up and want a few hours’ sleep. There 
isn’t anything to drink in the room, even if he 
should wake, and Jim is sleeping or lying there 
by him.” 

Oh, he’ll do all right now, I reckon,” said 
the officer of the day, cheerfully. ‘‘ Go and get 
your sleep. The old woman can’t get at him 
unless she bribes my sentries or rides the air on 
a broomstick, like some other old witches I’ve 
read of. Ferry sleeps in the adjoining room, 
anyhow, so he can look out for her. Good- 
night, Doc.” And so, on they went, glancing 
upward at the dim light just showing through 
the window-blinds in the gable end of Doyle’s 
quarters, and halting at the foot of the stairs. 

“ Come over and have a pipe with me. Ferry,” 
said the captain. “ It’s too beautiful a night to 
turn in. I want to talk to you about Waring, 
anyhow. This thing weighs on my mind.” 

“ Done with you, for an hour, anyhow !” said 
Ferry. “Just wait a minute till I run up and 
get my baccy.” 

Presently down came the young fellow again, 
meerschaum in hand, the moonlight glinting on 
his slender figure, so trim and jaunty in the 
battery dress. Kinsey looked him over with a 


WARINQ'S peril. 


171 


smile of soldierly approval and a whimsical com- 
ment on the contrast between the appearance of 
this young artillery sprig and that of his own 
stout personality, clad as he was in a bulging 
blue flannel sack-coat, only distinguishable in cut 
and style from civilian garb by its having brass 
buttons and a pair of tarnished old shoulder- 
straps. Ferry was a swell. His shell jacket 
fitted like wax. The Eussian shoulder-knots 
of twisted gold were of the handsomest make. 
The riding-breeches, top-boots, and spurs were 
such that even Waring could not criticise. His 
sabre gleamed in the moonbeams, and Kinsey’s 
old leather-covered sword looked dingy by con- 
trast. His belt fitted trim and taut, and was 
polished as his boot-tops; Kinsey’s sank down 
over the left hip, and was worn brown. The 
sash Ferry sported as battery officer of the day 
was draped. West Point fashion, over the shoul- 
der and around the waist, and accurately knotted 
and looped ; Kinsey’s old war-worn crimson net 
was slung higgledy-piggledy over his broad 
chest. 

“What swells jou fellows are. Ferry!” he 
said, laughingly, as the youngster came dancing 
down. “Even old Doyle gets out here in his 


172 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


Bcarlet plume occasionally and puts us dougli- 
boys to shame. What’s the use in trying to 
make such a rig as ours look soldierly ? If it 
were not for the brass buttons our coats would 
make us look like parsons and our hats like 
monkeys. As for this undress, all that can be 
said in its favor is, you can’t spoil it even by 
sleeping out on the levee in it, as I am some- 
times tempted to do. Let’s go out there now.” 

It was perhaps quarter of two when they took 
their seats on the wooden bench under the trees, 
and, lighting their pipes, gazed out over the 
broad sweeping flood of the Mississippi, gleam- 
ing like a silvered shield in the moonlight. 
Far across at the opposite shore the low line of 
orange-groves and plantation houses and quar- 
ters was merged in one long streak of gloom, 
relieved only at intervals by twinkling light. 
Farther up-stream, like dozing sea-dogs, the 
fleet of monitors lay moored along the bank, 
with the masts and roofs of Algiers dimly out- 
lined against the crescent sweep of lights that 
marked the levee of the great Southern metrop- 
olis, still prostrate from the savage buffeting of 
the war, yet so soon to rouse from lethargy, re 
Bume her sway, and, stretching forth her arms, 


WARING^S PERIL. 


173 


to draw once again to her bosom the wealth and 
tribute, tenfold augmented, of the very heart of 
the nation, until, mistress of the commerce of a 
score of States, she should rival even ITew York 
in the volume of her trade. Below them, away 
to the east towards English Turn, rolled the 
tawny flood, each ripple and eddy and swirling 
pool crested with silver, — the twinkling lights 
at Chaim ette barely distinguishable from dim, 
low-hanging stars. Midway the black hulk of 
some big ocean voyager was forging slowly, 
steadily towards them, the red light of the port 
side already obscured, the white and green 
growing with every minute more and more dis- 
tinct, and, save the faint rustle of the leaves 
overhead, murmuring under the touch of the 
soft, southerly night wind, the plash of wavelet 
against the wooden pier, and the measured foot- 
fall of the sentry on the flagstone walk in front 
of the sally-port, not a sound was to be heard. 

For a while they smoked in silence, enjoying 
the beauty of the night, though each was think- 
ing only of the storm that swept over the scene 
the Sunday previous and of the tragedy that 
was borne upon its wings. At last Kinsey 
shook himself together. 

16 * 


174 


WARING^S PERIL 


‘‘Ferry, sometimes I come out here for a 
quiet smoke and think. Did it ever occur to 
you what a fearful force, what illimitable power, 
there is sweeping by us here night after night 
with never a sound 

“Oh, you mean the Mississip,” said Ferry, 
flippantly. “It would be a case of mops and 
brooms, I fancy, if she were to bust through the 
bank and sweep us out into the swamps.” 

“ Exactly ! that’s in case she broke loose, as 
you say ; but even when in the shafts, as she is 
now, between the levees, how long would it take 
her to sweep a fellow from here out into the 
gulf, providing nothing interposed to stop him ?” 

“ Matter of simple mathematical calculation,” 
said Ferry, practically. “ They say it’s an eight- 
mile current easy out there in the middle where 
she’s booming. Look at that barrel scooting 
down yonder. How, I’d lay a flver I could cut 
loose from here at reveille and shoot the passes 
b 'fore taps and never pull a stroke. It’s less 
than eighty miles down to the forts.” 

“Well, then, a skift* like that that old 
Anatole’s blaspheming about losing wouldn’t 
take very long to ride over that route, would 
it ?” said Kinsey, reflectively. 


WARJNQ^S PERIL. 


175 


‘‘ 'No, not if allowed to slide. But somebodj’d 
be sure to put out and haul it in as a prize, 
— flotsam and what-you-may-call-’em. You see 
these old niggers all along here with their skiiFs 
tacking on to every bit of drift-wood that’s 
worth having.” 

‘‘But, Ferry, do you think they’d venture 
out in such a storm as Sunday last? — think 
anything could live in it short of a decked 
ship ?” 

“ 1^0, probably not. Certainly not Anatole’s 
boat.” 

<‘^011, that’s just what I’m afraid of, and 
what Cram and Reynolds dread.” 

“Do they? Well, so far as that storm’s con- 
cerned, it would have blown it down-stream 
until it came to the big bend below here to the 
east. Then, by rights, it ought to have blown 
against the left bank. But every inch of it has 
been scouted all the way to quarantine. The 
whole river was filled with drift, though, and it 
might have been wedged in a lot of logs and 
swept out anyhow. Splendid ship, that ! Who 
is she, do you suppose ?” 

The great black hull with its lofty tracery of 
masts and spars was now just about opposite the 


176 


WARING^S PERIL 


barracks, slowly and majestically ascending th« 
stream. 

“One of those big British freight steamers 
that moor there below the French Market, I 
reckon. They seldom come up at night unless 
it’s in the full of the moon, and even then they 
move with the utmost caution. See, she’s slow- 
ing up now.” 

“Hello! Listen! What’s that?” exclaimed 
Ferry, starting to his feet. 

A distant, muffled cry. A distant shot. The 
sentry at the sally-port dashed through the 
echoing vault, then bang! came the loud roar 
of his piece, followed by the yell of — 

“ Fire ! fire ! The guard 

With one spring Ferry was down the levee 
and darted like a deer across the road, Kinsey 
lumbering heavily after. Even as he sped 
through the stone-flagged way, the hoarse roar 
of the drum at the guard-house, followed in- 
stantly by the blare of the bugle from the bat- 
tery quarters, sounded the stirring alarm. A 
shrill, agonized female voice was madly scream- 
ing for help. Guards and sentries were rushing 
to the scene, and flames were bursting from the 
front window of Doyle’s quarters. Swift though 


waring^s peril. 


177 


Ferry ran, others were closer to the spot. Half 
a dozen active young soldiers, members of the 
infantry guard, had sprung to the rescue. 
Wl'.en Ferry dashed up to the gallery he was 
just in time to stumble over a writhing and 
prostrate form, to help extinguish the blazing 
clothing of another, to seize his water-bucket 
and douse its contents over a third, — one yell- 
ing, the others stupefied by smoke — or some- 
thing. In less time than it takes to tell it, 
daring fellows had ripped down the blazing 
shades and shutters, tossed them to the parade 
beneath, dumped a heap of soaked and smoking 
bedding out of the rear windows, splashed a 
few bucketfuls of water about the reeking room, 
and the fire was out. But the doctors were 
working their best to bring hack the spark of 
life to two senseless forms, and to still the 
shrieks of agony that burst from the seared 
and blistered lips of Bridget Doyle. 

While willing hands bore these scorched sem- 
blances of humanity to neighboring rooms and 
tender-hearted women hurried to add their min- 
istering touch, and old Braxton ordered the ex- 
cited garrison back to quarters and bed, he, with 
Cram and Kinsey and Ferry, made prompt ex- 

m 


178 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


amination of the premises. On the table two 
whiskey-bottles, one empty, one nearly full, that 
Dr. Potts declared were not there when he left 
at one. On the mantel a phial of chloroform, 
which was also not there before. But a towel 
soaked with the stifling contents lay on the floor 
by Jim’s rude pallet, and a handkerchief half 
soaked, half consumed, was on the chair which 
had stood by the bedside, among the fragments 
of an overturned kerosene lamp. 

A quick examination of the patients showed 
that Jim, the negro, had been chloroformed and 
was not burned at all, that Doyle was severely 
burned and had probably inhaled flames, and 
that the woman was crazed with drink, terror, 
and burns combined. It took the efforts of two 
or three men and the influence of powerful 
opiates to quiet her. Taxed with negligence or 
complicity on the part of the sentry, the ser- 
geant of the guard repudiated the idea, and 
assured Colonel Braxton that it was an easy 
matter for any one to get either in or out of the 
garrison without encountering the sentry, and, 
taking his lantern, led the way out to the hos- 
pital grounds by a winding foot-path among the 
trees to a point in the high white picket fence 


WARING'S PERIL. 


179 


where two slats had been shoved aside. Any 
one coming along the street without could pass 
far beyond the ken of the sentry at the west gate, 
and slip in with the utmost ease, and once in- 
side, all that was necessary was to dodge possible 
reliefs and patrols. E’o sentry was posted at the 
gate through the wall that separated the gar- 
rison proper from the hospital grounds. Asked 
why he had not reported this, the sergeant 
smiled and said there were a dozen others just 
as convenient, so what was the use? He did 
not say, however, that he and his fellows had 
recourse to them night after night. 

It was three o’clock when the officers’ families 
fairly got settled down again and back to their 
beds, and the silence of night once more reigned 
over Jackson Barracks. One would suppose 
that such a scene of terror and excitement was 
enough, and that now the trembling, frightened 
women might be allowed to sleep in peace ; but 
it was not to be. Hardly had one of their num- 
ber closed her eyes, hardly had all the flicker- 
ing lights, save those at the hospital and guard- 
house, been downed again, when the strained 
nerves of the occupants of the officers’ quad- 
rangle were jumped into mad jangling once 


180 


WARINO'S PERIL. 


more and all the barracks aroused a second 
time, and this, too, by a woman’s shriek of 
horror. 

Mrs. Conroy, a delicate, fragile little body, 
wife of a junior lieutenant of infantry occupy- 
ing a set of quarters in the same building with, 
but at the opposite end from. Pierce and Wa- 
ring, was found lying senseless at the head of 
the gallery stairs. 

When revived, amid tears and tremblings and 
incoherent exclamations she declared that she 
had gone down to the big ice-chest on the 
ground-door to get some milk for her nervous 
and frightened child and was hurrying noise- 
lessly up the stairs again, — the only means of 
communication between the first and second 
floors, — when, face to face, in front of his door, 
she came upon Mr. Waring, or his ghost; that 
his eyes were fixed and glassy; that he did not 
seem to see her even when he spoke, for speak 
he did. His voice sounded like a moan of an- 
guish, she said, but the words were distinct: 
“Where is my knife? Who has taken my 
knife ?” 

And then little Pierce, who had helped to 
raise and carry the stricken woman to her room, 


WARING^S PERIL. 


181 


suddenly darted out on the gallery and ran 
along to the door he had closed four hours 
earlier. It was open. Striking a match, he 
hurried through into the chamber beyond, and 
there, face downward upon the bed, lay his 
friend and comrade Waring, moaning like one 
in the delirium of fever. 


182 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


CHAPTER X. 

Lieutenant Reynolds was seated at his desk 
at department head-quarters about nine o’clock 
that morning when an orderly in light-battery 
dress dismounted at the banquette and came up 
the stairs three at a jump. “ Captain Cram’s 
compliments, sir, and this is immediate,” he re- 
ported, as he held forth a note. Reynolds tore 
it open, read it hastily through, then said, “ Go 
and fetch me a cab quick as you can,” and dis- 
appeared in the general’s room. Half an hour 
later he was spinning down the levee towards 
the French Market, and before ten o’clock was 
seated in the captain’s cabin of the big British 
steamer Ambassador, which had arrived at her 
moorings during the night. Cram and Xinsey 
were already there, and to them the skipper was 
telling his story. 

Off the Tortugas, just about as they had 
shaped their course for the Belize, they were 
hailed by the little steamer Tampa, bound from 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


183 


New Orleans to Havana. The sea was calm, 
and a boat put off from the Tampa and came 
alongside, and presently a gentleman was as- 
sisted aboard. He seemed weak from illness, 
but explained that he was Lieutenant Waring, 
of the United States Artillery, had been acci- 
dentally carried off to sea, and the Ambassador 
was the first inward-bound ship they had sighted 
since crossing the bar. He would be most 
‘thankful for a passage back to New Orleans. 
Captain Baird had welcomed him with the 
heartiness of the British tar, and made him at 
home in his cabin. The lieutenant was evi- 
dently far from well, and seemed somewhat 
dazed and mentally distressed. He could give 
no account of his mishap other than that told 
him by the officers of the Tampa, which had 
lain to when overtaken by the gale on Satur- 
day night, and on Sunday morning when they 
resumed their course down-stream they over- 
hauled a light skiff and were surprised to find 
a man aboard, drenched and senseless. ‘‘The 
left side of his face was badly bruised and dis- 
colored, even when he came to us,” said Baird, 
“ and he must have been slugged and robbed, for 
his watch, his seal-ring, and what little money 


184 


WARING^S PERIL. 


he had were all gone.” The second officer of 
the Tampa had fitted him out with a clean shirt, 
and the steward dried his clothing as best he 
could, but the coat was stained and clotted with 
blood. Mr. Waring had slept heavily much of 
the way hack until they passed Pilot Town. 
Then he was up and dressed Thursday after- 
noon, and seemingly in better spirits, when he 
picked up a copy of the 'New Orleans Picayune 
which the pilot had left aboard, and was reading 
that, when suddenly he started to his feet with 
an exclamation of amaze, and, when the captain 
turned to see what was the matter. Waring was 
ghastly pale and fearfully excited by something 
he had read. He hid the paper under his coat 
and sprang up on deck and paced nervously to 
and fro for hours, and began to grow so ill, 
apparently, that Captain Baird was much wor- 
ried. At night he begged to he put ashore at 
the barracks instead of going on up to town, 
and Baird had become so troubled about him 
that he sent his second officer in the gig with 
him, landed him on the levee opposite the sally- 
port, and there, thanking them heartily, but de- 
clining further assistance. Waring had hurried 
through the entrance into the barrack square. 


waring^s peril. 


186 


Mr. Royce, tlie second officer, said there was 
considerable excitement, beating of drums and 
sounding of bugles, at the post, as they rowed 
towards the shore. He did not learn the cause. 
Captain Baird was most anxious to learn if 
the gentleman had safely reached his destina- 
tion. Cram replied that he had, but in a state 
bordering on delirium and unable to give any 
coherent account of himself. He could tell he 
had been aboard the Ambassador and the 
Tampa, but that was about all. 

And then they told Baird that what Waring 
probably saw was Wednesday’s paper with the 
details of the inquest on the body of Lascelles 
and the chain of evidence pointing to himself 
as the murderer. This caused honest Captain 
Baird to lay ten to one he wasn’t, and five 
to one he’d never heard of it till he got the 
paper above Pilot Town. Whereupon all three 
officers clapped the Briton on the back and 
shook him by the hand and begged his com- 
pany to dinner at the barracks and at Moreau’s ; 
and then, while Reynolds sped to the police- 
office and Kinsey back to Colonel Braxton, 
whom he represented at the interview. Cram re- 
mounted, and, followed by the faithful Jeffers, 
16 * 


186 


WARINQ'S PERIL, 


trotted up Eampart Street and sent in his card 
to Madame Lascelles, and Madame’s maid 
brought hack reply that she was still too shocked 
and stricken to receive visitors. So also did 
Madame d’Hervilly deny herself, and Cram rode 
home to 'NeW. 

‘‘It is useless,” he said. “ She will not see 
me.” 

“ Then she shall see me,” said Mrs. Cram. 

And so a second time did Jeffers make the 
trip to town that day, this time perched with 
folded arms in the rumble of the pony-phaeton. 

And while she was gone, the junior doctor 
was having the liveliest experience of his few 
years of service. Scorched and burned though 
she was, Mrs. Doyle’s faculties seemed to have 
returned with renewed acuteness and force. 
She demanded to be taken to her husband’s side, 
but the doctor sternly refused. She demanded 
to be told his condition, and was informed that 
it was so critical he must not be disturbed, 
especially by her, who was practically respon- 
sible for all his trouble. Then she insisted on 
knowing whether he was conscious and whether 
he had asked for a priest, and when informed 
that Father Foley had already arrived, it re- 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


187 


cuired the strength of four men to hold her. 
She raved like a maniac, and her screams 
appalled the garrison. But screams and strug- 
gles were all in vain. ‘‘ Pills the Less” sent for 
his senior, and “ Pills the Pitiless” more than 
ever deserved his name. He sent for a strait- 
jacket, saw her securely stowed away in that 
and borne over to a vacant room in the old hos- 
pital, set the steward’s wife on watch and a sen- 
try at the door, went back to Waring’s bedside, 
where Sam lay tossing in burning fever, mur- 
mured his few words of caution to Pierce and 
Ferry, then hastened back to where poor Doyle 
was gasping in agony of mind and body, cling- 
ing to the hand of the gentle soldier of the cross, 
gazing piteously into his father confessor’s eyes, 
drinking in his words of exhortation, yet unable 
to make articulate reply. The flames had done 
their cruel work. Only in desperate pain could 
he speak again. 

It was nearly dark when Mrs. Cram came 
driving back to barracks, bringing Mr. Pey- 
nolds with her. Her eyes were dilated, her 
cheeks flushed with excitement, as she sprang 
from the low phaeton, and, with a murmured 
Come to me as soon as you can” to her bus- 


188 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


band, she sped away np tbe stairs, leaving bim 
to receive and entertain her passenger. 

“ I, too, went to see Madame Lascelles late 
this afternoon,” said Reynolds. wished to 
show her this.” 

It was a copy of a despatch to the chief of 
police of Hew Orleans. It stated in effect that 
Philippe Lascelles had not been seen or heard 
of around Key West for over two weeks. It 
was believed that he had gone to Havana. 

“ Can you get word of this to our friend the 
detective?” asked Cram. 

“I have wired already. He has gone to 
Georgia. What I hoped to do was to note the 
effect of this on Madame Lascelles ; but she was 
too ill to see me. Luckily, Mrs. Cram was there, 
and I sent it up to her. She will tell you. How 
I have to see Braxton.” 

And then came a messenger to ask Cram to 
join the doctor at Doyle’s quarters at once : so 
he scurried up-stairs to see Hell first and learn 
her tidings. 

‘‘ Did I not tell you ?” she exclaimed, as he 
entered the parlor. ^‘Philippe Lascelles was 
here that very night, and had been seen with his 
brother at the ofiice on Royal Street twice before 


WARING' S FERIL. 


t80 


this thing happened, and they had trouble about 
money. Oh, I made her understand. I ap- 
pealed to her as a woman to do what she could 
to right Mr. Waring, who was so generally be- 
lieved to be the guilty man. I told her we had 
detectives tracing Philippe and would soon find 
how and when he reached l^ew Orleans. Finally 
I showed her the despatch that Mr. Reynolds 
sent up, and at last she broke down, burst into 
tears, and said she, too, had learned since the 
inquest that Philippe was with her husband, and 
probably was the stranger referred to, that awful 
night. She even suspected it at the time, for 
she knew he came not to borrow but to demand 
money that was rightfully his, and also certain 
papers that Armand held and that now were 
gone. It was she who told me of Philippe’s 
having been seen with Armand at the ofiice, but 
she declared she could not believe that he would 
kill her husband. I pointed out the fact that 
Armand had fired two shots from his pistol, 
apparently, and that no bullet-marks had been 
found in the room where the quarrel took place, 
and that if his shots had taken effect on his 
antagonist he simply could not have been Wa- 
ring, for though Waring had been bruised and 


190 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


beaten about the bead, tbe doctor said there was 
no sign of bullet-mark about him anywhere. 
She recognized the truth of this, but still she 
said she believed that there was a quarrel or was 
to be a quarrel between her husband and Mr. 
"Waring. Otherwise I believe her throughout. 
I believe that, no matter what romance there 
was about her nursing Philippe and his falling 
in love with her, she did not encourage him, did 
not call him here again, was true to her old 
husband. She is simply possessed with the idea 
that the quarrel which killed her husband was 
between himself and Mr. Waring, and that it 
occurred after Philippe had got his money and 
papers, and gone.’’ 

“W-e-e-11, Philippe will have a heap to ex- 
plain when he is found,” was Cram’s reply. 
‘‘ ITow I have to go to Doyle’s. He is making 
some confession, I expect, to the priest.” 

But Cram never dreamed for an instant what 
that was to be. 

That night poor Doyle’s spirit took its flight, 
and the story of misery he had to tell, partly 
by scrawling with a pencil, partly by gesture 
in reply to question, partly in painfully-gasped 
sentences, a few words at a time, was practically 


WARING^S PERIL. 


191 


this. Lascelles and his party did indeed leave 
him at the Pelican when he was so drunk he 
only vaguely knew what was going on or what 
had happened in the bar-room where they were 
drinking, but his wife had told him the whole 
story. Lascelles wanted more drink, — cham- 
pagne ; the bar-tender wanted to close up. They 
bought several bottles, however, and had them 
put in the cab, and Lascelles was gay and sing- 
ing, and, instead of going directly home, insisted 
on stopping to make a call on the lady who oc- 
cupied the upper floor of the house Doyle rented 
on the levee. Doyle rarely saw her, but she 
sometimes wrote to Lascelles and got Bridget 
to take the letters to him. She was setting her 
cap for the old Frenchman. “We called her 
Mrs. Dawson.’’ The cabman drove very slowly 
through the storm as Doyle walked home along 
with Bridget and some man who was helping, 
and when they reached the gate there was the 
cab and Waring in it. The cab-driver was stand- 
ing by his horse, swearing at the delay and say- 
ing he would charge double fare. Doyle had 
had trouble with his wife for many years, and 
renewed trouble lately because of two visits Las- 
celles had paid there, and that evening when she 


192 


WARING^S PERIL. 


B3iit for Mm he was drinking in Waring’s room, 
had been drinking daring the day ; he dreaded 
more trouble, and ’twas he who took Waring’s 
knife, and still had it, he said, when he entered 
the gate, and no sooner did he see Lascelles at 
his door than he ordered him to leave. Lascelles 
refused to go. Doyle knocked him down, and 
the Frenchman sprang up, swearing vengeance. 
Lascelles fired two shots, and Doyle struck once, 
— with the knife, — and there lay Lascelles, dead, 
before Doyle could know or realize what he was 
doing. In fact, Doyle never did know. It was 
what his wife had told him, and life had been a 
hell to him ever since that woman came back. 
She had blackmailed him, more or less, ever 
since he got his commission, because of an old 
trouble he’d had in Texas. 

And this confession was written out for him, 
signed by Doyle on his dying bed, duly wit- 
nessed, and the civil authorities were promptly 
notified. Bridget Doyle was handed over to the 
police. Certain detectives out somewhere on the 
trail of somebody else were telegraphed to come 
in, and four days later, when the force of the 
fever was broken and W^aring lay weak, languid, 
but returning to his senses, Cram and the doctor 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


193 


read the confession to their patient, and then 
started to their feet as he almost sprang from 
the bed. 

‘‘It’s an infernal lie !” he weakly cried. “I 
took that knife from Doyle and kept it. I my- 
self saw Lascelles to his gate, safe and sound.’’ 


194 


WARIN&S RFRIL. 


CHAPTER XL 

The sunshine of an exquisite April morning 
was shimmering over the Louisiana lowlands as 
Battery “X” was ‘‘ hitching in,” and Mrs. Cram’s 
pretty pony-phaeton came flashing through the 
garrison gate and reined up in front of the guns. 
A proud and happy woman was Mrs. Cram, and 
daintily she gathered the spotless, cream-colored 
reins and slanted her long English driving-whip 
at the exact angle prescribed by the vogue of the 
day. By her side, reclining luxuriously on his 
pillows, was Sam Waring, now senior hrst lieu- 
tenant of the battery, taking his flrst airing since 
his strange, illness. Pallid and thin though he 
was, that young gentleman was evidently capable 
of appreciating to the fullest extent the devoted 
attentions of which he had been the object ever 
since his return. Stanch friend and fervent 
champion of her husband’s most distinguished 
officer at any time, Mrs. Cram had thrown her- 
self into his cause with a zeal that challenired 

O 


WARING^ S PERIL. 195 

tlie admiration even of the men whom she mer- 
cilessly snubbed because they had accepted the 
general verdict that Lascelles had died by "Wa- 
ring’s hand. Had they met in the duello as 
practised in the South in those days, sword to 
sword, or armed with pistol at twelve paces, she 
would have shuddered, but maintained that as a 
soldier and gentleman Waring could not have 
refused his opponent’s challenge, inexcusable 
though such challenge might have been. But 
that he could have stooped to vulgar, unregu- 
lated fracas, without seconds or the formality 
of the cartel, first with fists and those women’s 
weapons, nails, then knives or stilettoes, as 
though he was some low dago or Sicilian, — why, 
that was simply and utterly incredible. Hone 
the less she was relieved and rejoiced, as were all 
Waring’s friends, when the full purport of poor 
Doyle’s dying confession was noised abroad. 
Even those who were sceptical were now si- 
lenced. For four days her comfort and relief 
had been inexpressible ; and then came the hour 
when, with woe and trouble in his face, her 
husband returned to her from Waring’s bedside 
with the incomprehensible tidings that he had 
utterly repudiated Doyle’s confession, — had, in- 


196 


WARIN&S PERIL. 


deed, said that which could probably only serve 
to renew the suspicion of his own guilt, or else 
justify the theory that he was demented. 

Though Cram and the doctor warned Wa- 
ring not to talk, talk he would, to Pierce, to 
Ferry, to Ananias; and though these three 
were pledged by Cram to reveal to no one what 
Wearing said, it plunged them in an agony of 
doubt and misgiving. Day after day had the 
patient told and re-told the story, and never 
could cross-questioning shake him in the least. 
Cram sent for Reynolds and took him into their 
confidence, and Reynolds heard the story and 
added his questions, but to no effect. From 
first to last he remembered every incident up to 
his parting with Lascelles at his own gateway. 
After that — nothing. 

His story, in brief, was as follows. He was 
both surprised and concerned, while smoking 
and chatting with Mr. Allerton in the rotunda 
of the St. Charles, to see Lascelles with a friend, 
evidently watching an opportunity of speaking 
with him. He had noticed about a week pre- 
vious a marked difierence in the old French- 
man’s manner, and three days before the trag- 
edy, when calling on his way from town to see 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


197 


Madame and Wm Mn, was informed that they 
were not at home, and Monsieur himself was 
the informant ; nor did he, as heretofore, invite 
Waring to enter. Sam was a fellow who de- 
tested misunderstanding. Courteously, hut pos- 
itively, he demanded explanation. Lascelles 
shrugged his shoulders, hut gave it. He had 
heard too much of Monsieur’s attentions to Ma- 
dame his wife, and desired their immediate 
discontinuance. He must request Monsieur’s 
assurance that he would not again visit Beau 
Eivage, or else the reparation due a man of 
honor, etc. Whereupon,” said Waring, I 
didn’t propose to be outdone in civility, and 
therefore replied, in the best French I could 
command, ‘ Permit me to tender Monsieur — both. 
Monsieur’s friends will find me at the bar- 
racks.’ ” 

“ All the same,” said Waring, when I found 
Madame and Hin Mn stuck in the mud I did 
what I considered the proper thing, and drove 
them, coram publico, to ‘bonne maman’s,’ never 
letting them see, of course, that there was any 
row on tap, and so when I saw the old fellow 
with a keen-looking party alongside I felt sure it 
meant mischief. I was utterly surprised, there- 
17 * 


198 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


i 


fore, when Lascelles came up with hat off and 
hand extended, bowing low, praying pardon for 
the intrusion, but saying he could not defer 
another instant the desire to express his grati- 
tude the most profound for my extreme courtesy 
to Madame and his beloved child. He had 
heard the wnole story, and, to my confusion, 
insisted on going over all the details before 
Allerton, even to my heroism, as he called it, in 
knocking down that big bully of a cabman. I 
was confused, yet couldn’t shake him otf. He 
was persistent. He was abject. He begged to 
meet my friend, to present his, to open cham- 
pagne and drink eternal friendship. He would 
change the name of his chateau — the rotten old 
rookery — from Beau Kivage to Belle Alliance. 
He would make this day a fete in the calendar 
of the Lascelles family. And then it began to 
dawn on me that he had been drinking cham- 
pagne before he came. I did not catch the 
name of the other gentleman, a much younger 
man. He was very ceremonious and polite, but 
distant. Then, in some way, came up the fact 
that I had been trying to get a cab to take me 
back to barracks, and then Lascelles declared 
that nothing could be more opportune. He had 


WARINO'S PERIL. 


199 


secured a carriage and was just going down with 
Monsieur. They had des affaires to transact at 
once. He took me aside and said, ‘ In proof 
that you accept my amende, and in order that I 
may make to you my personal apologies, you 
must accept my invitation.’ So go with them I 
did. I was all the time thinking of Cram’s mys- 
terious note bidding me return at taps. I couldn’t 
imagine what was up, but I made my best en- 
deavors to get a cab. Hone was to be had, so I 
was really thankful for this opportunity. All the 
way down Lascelles overwhelmed me with civili- 
ties, and I could only murmur and protest, and 
the other party only murmured approbation. 
He hardly spoke English at all. Then Lascelles 
insisted on a stop at the Pelican and on bumpers 
of champagne, and there, as luck would have 
it, was Hoyle, — drunk, as usual, and determined 
to join the party; and though I endeavored to 
put him aside, Lascelles would not have it. He 
insisted on being presented to the comrade of 
his gallant friend, and in the private room where 
we went he overwhelmed Hoyle with details of 
our grand reconciliation and with bumper after 
bumper of Krug. This enabled me to fight 
shy of the wine, but in ten minutes Hoyle was 


200 


WARING^S PERIL. 


fighting drunk, Lascelles tipsy. The driver 
came in for his pay, saying he would go no 
further. They had a row. Lascelles wouldn't 
pay; called him an Irish thief, and all that. I 
slipped my last V into the driver’s hand and 
got him out somehow. Monsieur Philippes, or 
whatever his name was, said he would go out, — 
he’d get a cab in the neighborhood ; and the 
next thing I knew, Lascelles and Doyle were in 
a fury of a row. Lascelles said all the Irish 
were knaves and blackguards and swindlers, and 
Doyle stumbled around after him. Out came a 
pistol ! Out came a knife ! I tripped Doyle 
and got him into a chair, and was so intent on 
pacifying him and telling him not to make a 
fool of himself that I didn’t notice anything else. 
I handled him good-naturedly, got the knife 
away, and then was amazed to find that he had 
my own pet paper-cutter. I made them shake 
hands and make up. It was all a mistake, said 
Lascelles. But what made it a worse mistake, 
the old man loould order more wine, and, with it, 
brandy. He insisted on celebrating this second 
grand reconciliation, and then both got drunker, 
hut the tall Prenchman had Lascelles’s pistol 
and I had the knife, and then a cab came, and, 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


201 


though it was storming beastly and I had Ferry^s 
duds on and Larkin’s best tile and Pierce’s um- 
brella, we bundled in somehow and drove on 
down the levee, leaving Doyle in the hands of 
that Amazon of a wife of his and a couple of 
doughboys who happened to be around there. 
'Now Lascelles was all hilarity, singing, joking, 
confidential. N’othing would do but we must 
stop and call on a lovely woman, a belle amie. 
He could rely on our discretion, he said, laying 
his finger on his nose, and looking sly and coquet- 
tish, for all the world like some old roue of a 
Frenchman. He must stop and see her and take 
her some wine. ‘ Indeed,’ he said, mysteriously, 
‘ it is a rendezvous.’ Well, I was their guest; I 
had no money. What could I do ? It was then 
after eleven, I should judge. Monsieur Phi- 
lippes, or whatever his name was, gave orders 
to the driver. We pulled up, and then, to my 
surprise, I found we were at Doyle’s. That 
ended it. I told them they must excuse me. 
They protested, but of course I couldn’t go in 
there. So they took a couple of bottles apiece 
and went in the gate, and I settled myself for a 
nap and got it. I don’t kriow how long I slept, 
but I was aroused by the devil’s own tumult. 


202 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


A shot had been fired. Men and women both 
were screaming and swearing. Some one sud- 
denly burst into the cab beside me, really 
pushed from behind, and then away we went 
through the mud and the rain; and the light- 
ning was flashing now, and presently I could 
recognize Lascelles, raging. ‘ Infame !’ ‘ Co- 
quin !’ ‘ Assassin !’ were the mildest terms he 
was volleying at somebody ; and then, recogniz- 
ing me, he burst into maudlin tears, swore I was 
his only friend. He had been insulted, abused, 
denied reparation. Was he hurt? I inquired, 
and instinctively felt for my knife. It was still 
there where I’d hid it in the inside pocket of 
my overcoat. Ho hurt ; not a blow. Did I sup- 
pose that he, a Frenchman, would pardon that 
or leave the spot until satisfaction had been 
exacted? Then I begged him to be calm and 
listen to me for a moment. I told him my 
plight, — that I had given my word to be at 
barracks that evening ; that I had no money left, 
but I could go no further. Instantly he forgot 
his woes and became absorbed in my affairs. 

‘ Parole d'honneur he would see that mine was 
never unsullied. He himself would escort me 
to the maison de Capitaine Cram. He would re * 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


203 


joice to saj to that brave ennemi, Behold ! here 
is thj lieutenant, of honor the most unsullied, 
of courage the most admirable, of heart the 
most magnanimous. The Lord only knows 
what he wouldn’t have done had we not pulled 
up at his gate. There I helped him out on the 
banquette. He was steadied by his row, what- 
ever it had been. He would not let me expose 
myself — even under Pierce’s umbrella. He 
would not permit me to suffer ‘from times so 
of the dog.’ ‘You will drive Monsieur to his 
home and’ return here for me at once,’ he 
ordered cabby, grasped both my hands with fer- 
vent good-night and the explanation that he had 
much haste, implored pardon for leaving me, — 
on the morrow he would call and explain every- 
thing, — then darted into the gate. We never 
could have parted on more friendly terms. I 
stood a moment to see that he safely reached 
his door, for a light was dimly burning in the 
hall, then turned to jump into the cab, but it 
wasn’t there. Hothing was there. I jumped 
from the banquette into a berth aboard some 
steamer out at sea. They tell me the first thing 
I asked for was Pierce’s umbrella and Larkin’s 
hat.” 


204 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


And this was the story that Waring main- 
tained from first to last. Pills” ventured a 
query as to whether the amount of Krug and 
Clicquot consumed might not have overthrown 
his mental equipoise. Ko, Sam declared, he 
drank very little. The only bacchanalian 
thing I did was to join in a jovial chorus from a 
new French opera which Lascelles’s friend piped 
up and I had heard in the Korth : 

Oui, buvons, buvons encore 1 
S’il est un vin qu’on adore 
De Paris a Macao, 

C’est le Clicquot, e’est le Clicquot. 

Asked if he had formed any conjecture as to 
the identity of the stranger, Sam said no. The 
name sounded like “Philippes,” but he couldn’t 
be sure. But when told that there were rumors 
to the effect that Lascelles’s younger brother had 
been seen with him twice or thrice of late, and 
that he had been in exile because, if anything, 
of a hopeless passion for Madame his sister-in- 
law, and that his name was Philippe, Waring 
looked dazed. Then a sudden light, as of newer, 
fresher memory, fiashed up in his eyes. He 
seemed about to speak, but as suddenly con- 


WARING^ S PERIL. 


206 


trolled himself and turned his face to the wall. 
From that time on he was determinedly dumb 
about the stranger. What roused him to lively 
interest and conjecture, however, was Cram’s 
query as to whether he had not recognized in the 
cabman, called in by the stranger, the very one 
whom he had knocked endwise” and who had 
tried to shoot him that morning. “No,” said 
Waring: “the man did not speak at all, that 
I noticed, and I did not once see his face, he 
was so bundled up against the storm.” But if 
it was the same party, suggested he, it seemed 
hardly necessary to look any further in expla- 
nation of his own disappearance. Cabby had 
simply squared matters by knocking him sense- 
less, helping himself to his watch and ring, and 
turning out his pockets, then hammering him 
until frightened off, and then, to cover his tracks, 
setting him afloat in Anatole’s boat. 

“ Perhaps cabby took a hand in the murder, 
too,” suggested Sam, with eager interest. “ You 
say he had disappeared, — gone with his plunder. 
Now, who else could have taken my knife ?” 

Then Reynolds had something to tell him : 
that the “ lady” who wrote the anonymous let- 
ters, the belle amie whom Lascelleo proposed to 
18 


206 


WARING'S PERIL. 


visit, the occupant of the upper floor of the 
dove-cot,” was none other than the blighted 
floweret who had appealed to him for aid and 
sympathy, for fifty dollars at first and later for i 
more, the first year of his army service in the 
South, ‘‘ for the sake of the old home.” Then 
Waring grew even more excited and interested. 

“ Pills” put a stop to further developments for a 
few days. He feared a relapse. But, in spite 
of Pills,” the developments, like other maladies, 
throve. The little detective came down again. 

He was oddly inquisitive about that chanson a 
boire from “ Fleur de The.^^ Would Mr. Waring 
hum it for him ? And Sam, now sitting up in 
his parlor, turned to his piano, and with long, 
slender, fragile-looking fingers rattled a lively 
prelude and then faintly quavered the rollicking 
words. 

“ Odd,” said Mr. Pepper, as they had grown 
to call him, I heard that sung by a fellow up in 
Chartres Street two nights hand-running before 
this thing happened, — a merry cuss, too, with a 
rather loose hand on his shekels. Lots of people 
may know it, though, maynT they ?”' 

‘‘Ko, indeed, not down here,” said Sam. 

“ It only came out in ilew York within the last 


WARING^S PERIL. 


207 


four months, and hasn’t been South or West at 
all, that I know of. What did he look like ?” 

‘‘ Well, what did the feller that was with you 
look like ?” 

But here Sam’s description grew vague. So 
Pepper went up to have a beer by himself at 
the cafe chantant on Chartres Street, and didn’t 
return for nearly a week. 

Meantime came this exquisite April morning 
and Sam’s appearance in the pony-phaeton in 
front of Battery ‘‘ X.” Even the horses seemed 
to prick up their ears and be glad to see him. 
Grim old war sergeants rode up to touch their 
caps and express the hope that they’d soon have 
the lieutenant in command of the right section 
again, — ‘‘ not but what Loot’n’t Ferry’s doing 
first-rate, sir,” — and for a few minutes, as his fair 
charioteer drove him around the battery, in his 
weak, languid voice. Waring indulged in a little 
of his own characteristic chaffing : 

I expect you to bring this section up to top 
notch, Mr. Ferry, as I am constitutionally op- 
posed to any work on my own account. I beg to 
call your attention, sir, to the fact that it’s very 
bad form to appear with full-dress scliabraque on 
your horse when the battery is in fatigue. The 


208 


WARING^S PERIL. 


red blanket, sir, tbe red blanket only should be 
used. Be good enough to stretch your traces 
there, right caisson. Yes, I thought so, swing 
trace is twisted. Carelessness, Mr. Ferry, and 
indifference to duty are things I won’t tolerate. 
Your cheek-strap, too, sir, is an inch too long. 
Your bit will fall through that horse’s mouth. 
This won’t do, sir, not in my section, sir. I’ll 
fine you a box of Partagas if it occurs again.” 

But the blare of the bugle sounding “ atten- 
tion” announced the presence of the battery 
commander. Hell whipped up in an instant and 
whisked her invalid out of the way. 

“ Good-morning, Captain Cram,” said he, as 
he passed his smiling chief. I regret to ob- 
serve, sir, that things have been allowed to run 
down somewhat in my absence.” 

Oh, out with you, you combination of cheek 
and incapacity, or I’ll run you down with the 
whole battery. Oh! Waring, some gentlemen 
in a carriage have just stopped at your quar- 
ters, all in black, too. Ah, here’s the orderly 
now.” 

And the card, black-bordered, handed into the 
phaeton, bore a name which blanched Waring’e 
face ; 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


209 



‘‘ Why, what is it, Waring asked Cram, 
anxiously, bending down from his saddle. 

For a moment Waring was silent. Mrs. Cram 
felt her own hand trembling. 

‘‘ Can you turn the battery over to Ferry and 
come with me ?” asked the lieutenant. 

“ Certainly.— Bugler, report to Lieutenant 
Ferry and tell him I shall have to be absent for 
a while. — Drive on, N’ell.” 

When, five minutes later. Waring was assisted 
up the stair-way. Cram towering on his right, 
the little party came upon a group of strangers, 
— three gentlemen, one of whom stepped cour- 
teously forward, raising his hat in a black-gloved 
hand. He was of medium height, slender, erect, 
and soldierly in bearing ; his face was dark and 
oval, his eyes large, deep, and full of light. He 


210 


WARING'S PERIL. 


spoke mainly in English, but with marked accent, 
and the voice was soft and melodious : 

‘‘ I fear I have intrude. Have I the honor 
to address Lieutenant Waring? I am Philippe 
Lascelles.” 

For a moment Waring was too amazed to 
speak. At last, with brightening face and hold 
ing forth his hand, he said, — 

‘‘ I am most glad to meet you, — to know that 
it was not you who drove down with us that 
night.” 

‘‘Alas, no! I left Armand hut that very 
morning, returning to Havana, thence going to 
Santiago. It was not until five days ago the 
news reached me. It is of that stranger I come 
to ask.” 

It was an odd council gathered there in Wa- 
ring’s room in the old barracks that April morn- 
ing while Ferry was drilling the battery to his 
heart’s content and the infantry companies were 
wearily going over the manual or bayonet ex- 
ercise. Old Brax had been sent for, and came. 
Monsieur Lascelles’s friends, both, like himself, 
soldiers of the South, were presented, and for 
their information Waring’s story was again told, 
with only most delicate allusion to certain inci- 


WARINO^S PERIL. 


211 


dents which might be considered as reflecting on 
the character and dignity of the elder brother. 
And then Philippe told his. True, there had 
been certain transactions between Armand and 
himself. He had fully trusted his brother, a 
man of afiairs, with the management of the little 
inheritance which he, a soldier, had no idea how 
to handle, and Armand’s business had suffered 
greatly by the war. It was touching to see how 
in every word the younger strove to conceal the 
fact that the elder had misapplied the securities 
and had been practically faithless to his trust. 
Everything, he declared, had been finally settled 
as between them that very morning before his 
return to Havana. Armand had brought to him 
early all papers remaining in his possession and 
had paid him what was justly due. He knew, 
however, that Armand was now greatly em- 
barrassed in his affairs. They had parted with 
fond embrace, the most affectionate of brothers. 
But Philippe had been seeing and hearing 
enough to make him gravely apprehensive as 
to Armand’s future, to know that his business 
was rapidly going down-hill, that he had been 
raising money in various ways, speculating, and 
had fallen into the hands of sharpers, and yet 


212 


WARTim^S PERIL. 


Arm and would not admit it, would not consent 
to accept help or to use his younger brother’s 
property in any way. “ The lawyer,” said 
I'hilippe, “ informed me that Beau Bivage was 
heavily mortgaged, and it is feared that there 
will be nothing left for Madame and Mn Bin, 
though, for that matter, they shall never want.” 
What he had also urged, and he spoke with 
reluctance here, and owned it only because the 
detectives told him it was now well known, was 
that Armand had of late been playing the role. 
of galant homme, and that the woman in the case 
had fled. Of all this he felt, he said, bound to 
speak fully, because in coming here with his 
witnesses to meet Lieutenant Waring and his 
friends he had two objects in view. The first 
was to admit that he had accepted as fact the 
published reports that Lieutenant Waring Avas 
probably his brother’s slayer ; had hastened back 
to Bew Orleans to demand justice or obtain re- 
venge; had here learned from the lawyers and 
police that there were now other and much more 
probable theories, having heard only one of 
which he had cried Enough,” and had come to 
pray the forgiveness of Mr. Waring for having 
believed an officer and a gentleman guilty of so 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


213 


foul a crime. Second, tie had come to invoke 
his aid in running down the murderer. Phi- 
lippe was alFccted almost to tears. 

‘‘ There is one question I must beg to ask 
Monsieur,” said Waring, as the two clasped 
hands. “Is there not still a member of your 
family who entertains the idea that it was I who 
killed Armand Lascelles ?” 

And Philippe was deeply embarrassed. 

“ Ah, monsieur,” he answered, “ I could not 
venture to intrude myself upon a grief so sacred. 
I have not seen Madame, and who is there who 

could — who would — tell her of Armand’s ” 

And Philippe broke off abruptly, with despair- 
ing shrug, and outward wave of his slender 
hand. 

“ Let us try to see that she never does know,” 
said Waring. “ These are the men we need to 
find : the driver of the cab, the stranger whose 
name sounded so like yours, a tall, swarthy, 
black-haired, black-eyed fellow with pointed 
moustache ” 

‘‘C’est lui! c^est Men luiP’ exclaimed Lascelles, 
— “the very man who insisted on entering the 
private office where, Armand and I, we close 
our affairs that morning. His whispered words 


214 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


make my brother all of pale, and yet he go off 
humming to himself.” 

Oh, we’ll nail him,” said Cram. ‘‘ Two of 
the best detectives in the South are on his trail 
now.” 

And then came Ananias with a silver tray, 
champagne, and glasses (from Mrs. Cram), and 
the conference went on another hour before the 
guests went off. 

‘‘Bless my soul!” said Brax, whose diameter 
seemed in no wise increased by the quart of 
Eoederer he had swallowed with such gusto, — 
“bless my soul! and to think I believed that 
we were going to have a duel with some of those 
fellows a fortnight or so ago !” 

Then entered “Pills” and ordered Waring 
back to bed. He was sleeping placidly when, 
late that evening, Reynolds and Cram came 
tearing up the stair- way, full of great news ; but 
the doctor said not to wake him. 

Meantime, how fared it with that bruised reed, 
the lone widow of the late Lieutenant Doyle ? 
Poor old Jim had been laid away with military 
honors under the flag at Chalmette, and his 
faithful Bridget was spending the days in the 
public calaboose. Drunk and disorderly was the 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


216 


charge on which she had been arraigned, and, 
though she declared herself abundantly able to 
pay her fine twice over, Mr. Pepper had warned 
the authorities to keep her under lock and key 
and out of liquor, as her testimony would be 
of vital importance, if for nothing better than 
to send her up for perjury. Il^'ow she was al- 
ternately wheedling, cursing, coaxing, bribing; 
all to no purpose. The agent of the Lemaitre 
property had swooped down on the dove-cot and 
found a beggarly array of empty bottles and a 
good deal of discarded feminine gear scattered 
about on both fioors. One room in which cer- 
tain detectives were vastly interested contained 
the unsavory relics of a late supper. Three or 
four empty champagne-bottles, some shattered 
glasses, and, what seemed most to attract them, 
various stubs of partially-consumed cigarettes, 
lay about the tables and fioor. Adjoining this 
was the chamber which had been known as Mrs. 
Dawson’s, and this, too, had been thoroughly 
explored. ’Louette, who had disappeared after 
Doyle’s tragic death, was found not far away, 
and the police thought it but fair that Mrs. 
Doyle should not be deprived of the services of 
her maid. Then came other additions, though 


216 


WARING^S PERIL. 


confined in other sections of the city. Mr, 
Pepper wired that the party known as Mon- 
sieur Philippes had been run to earth and would 
reach town with him by train about the same 
time that another of the force returned from Mo- 
bile by boat, bringing a young man known as 
Dawson and wanted as a deserter, and a very 
sprightly young lady who appeared to move in a 
higher sphere of life, but was unquestionably liis 
wife, for the officer could prove their marriage 
in South Carolina in the spring of ’65. As Mr. 
Pepper expressed it when he reported to Rey- 
nolds, “ It’s almost a full hand, but, for a fact, 
it’s only a bobtail flush. We need that cabman 
to fill.” 

“ How did you trace Philippes ?” asked Rey- 
nolds. 

“ Him ? Oh, he was too darned musical. It 
was — what do you call it ? — Plure de Tay that 
did for him. Why, he’s the fellow that raised 
all the money and most of the h — 11 for this old 
man Lascelles. He’d been sharping him for 
years.” 

‘‘Well, when can we bring this thing to a 
head ?” asked the aide-de-camp. 

“ Poco tiempo ! by Saturday, I reckon.” 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


217 


But it came sooner. 

Waring was seated one lovely evening in a 
low reclining chair on Mrs. Cram’s broad gallery, 
sipping contentedly at the cup of fragrant tea 
she had handed him. The band was playing, 
and a number of children were chasing about 
in noisy glee. The men were at supper, the offi- 
cers, as a rule, at mess. For several minutes 
the semi-restored invalid had not spoken a 
word. In one of his customary day-dreams he 
had been calmly gazing at the shapely white 
hand of his hostess, “ all queenly with its weight 
of rings.” 

“ Will you permit me to examine those rings 
a moment?” he said. 

‘‘Why, certainly. No, you sit still, Mr. Wa- 
ring,” she replied, promptly rising, and, pulling 
them off her fingers, dropped them into his open 
palm. With the same dreamy expression on his 
clear-cut, pallid face, he turned them over and 
over, held them up to the light, finally selected 
one exquisite gem, and then, half rising, held 
forth the others. As she took them and still 
stood beside his chair as though patiently wait- 
ing, he glanced up. 

“ Oh, beg pardo n. Y ou want this, I suppose ?” 


218 


WAKING'S PERIL, 


and, handing her the dainty teacup, he calmly 
slipped the ring into his waistcoat-pocket and 
languidly murmured, “ Thanks.” 

‘‘ Well, I like that.” 

‘‘Yes? So do I, rather better than the 
others.” 

“ May I ask what you purpose doing with my 
ring?” 

“I was just thinking. I’ve ordered a new 
Amidon for Larkin, a new ninety-dollar suit for 
Ferry, and I shall be decidedly poor this month, 
even if we recover Merton’s watch.” 

“ Oh, well, if it’s only to pawn one, why not 
take a diamond?” 

“ But it isn’t.” 

“ What then, pray ?” 

“Well, again I was just thinking — whether I 
could find another to match this up in town, or 
send this one — to her.” 

“ Mr. Waring ! Really f” And now Mrs. 
Cram’s bright eyes are dancing with eagerness 
and delight. 

For all answer, though his own eyes begin 
to moisten and swim, he draws from an inner 
pocket a dainty letter, post-marked from a far, 
far city to the northeast. 


WARING^S PERIL. 


219 


You dear fellow! How can I tell you liow 
glad I am ! I haven’t dared to ask you of her 
since we met at Washington, but — oh, my heart 
has been just full of her since — since this trouble 
came.” 

God bless the trouble ! it was that that won 
her to me at last. I have loved her ever since 
I first saw her — long years ago.” 

“ Oh I oh ! OH ! if Hed were only here I I’m 
wild to tell him. I may, mayn’t I ?” 

‘‘ Yes, the moment he comes.” 

But Hed brought a crowd with him when he 
got back from town a little later. Reynolds 
was there, and Philippe Lascelles, and Mr. Pep- 
per, and they had a tale to tell that must needs 
be condensed. 

They had all been present by invitation of the 
civil authorities at a very dramatic afiair during 
the late afternoon, — the final lifting of the veil 
that hid from public view the ‘‘ strange, eventful 
history” of the Lascelles tragedy. Cram was 
the spokesman by common consent. “With 
the exception of the Dawsons,” said he, “ none 
of the parties implicated knew up to the hour 
of his or her examination that any one of the 
others was to appear.” Mrs. Dawson, eager to 


220 


WARINQ^S PERIL. 


save her own pretty neck, had told her story 
without reservation. Dawson knew nothing. 

The story had been wrung from her piece- 
meal, but was finally told in full, and in, the 
presence of the officers and civilians indicated. 
She had married in April, ’65, to the scorn ot 
her people, a young Yankee officer attached to 
the commissary department. She had starved all 
through the war. She longed for life, luxury, 
comforts. She had nothing but her beauty, he 
nothing but his pay. The extravagances of a 
month swamped him ; the drink and desperation 
of the next ruined him. He maintained her in 
luxury at the best hotel only a few weeks, then 
all of his and much of Uncle Sam’s money was 
gone. Inspection proved him a thief and em- 
bezzler. He fled, and she was abandoned to her 
own resources. She had none but her beauty 
and a gift of penmanship which covered the 
many sins of her orthography. She was given 
a clerkship, but wanted more money, and took 
it, blackmailing a quartermaster. She imposed 
on Waring, but he quickly found her out and 
absolutely refused afterwards to see her at all. 
She was piqued and angered, ‘‘ a woman scorned,” 
but not until he joined Battery “X” did oppor- 


WARING'S PERIL, 


221 


tUQity present itself for revenge. She had 
secured a room under Mrs. Doyle’s reputable 
roof, to be near the barracks, where she could 
support herself by writing for Mrs. Doyle and 
blackmailing those whom she lured, and where 
she could watch him^ and, to her eager delight, 
she noted and prepared to make much of his 
attentions to Madame Lascelles. Incidentally, 
too, she might inveigle the susceptible Lascelles 
himself, on the principle that there’s no fool like 
an old fool. Mrs. Doyle lent herself eagerly to 
the scheme. The letters began to pass to and 
fro again. Lascelles was fool enough to answer, 
and when, all on a sudden, Mrs. Doyle’s ‘4ong- 
missing relative,” as she called him, turned up, 
a pensioner on her charity, it was through the 
united efforts of the two women he got a situ- 
ation as cab-driver at the stable up at the east- 
ern skirt of the town. Dawson had enlisted to 
keep from starving, and, though she had no use 
for him as a husband, he would do to fetch and 
carry, and he dare not disobey. Twice when 
Doyle was battery officer of the day did this 
strangely-assorted pair of women entertain Las- 
celles at supper and fleece him out of what 
money he had. Then came Philippes with Las- 
19 * 


222 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


celles in Mike’s cab, as luck would have it, but 
they could not fleece Philippes. Old Lascelles 
was rapidly succumbing to ISTita’s fascinations 
when came the night of the terrible storm. 
Mike had got to drinking, and was laid low by 
the lieutenant. Mike and Bridget both vowed 
vengeance. But meantime Doyle himself had 
got wind of something that was going on, and 
he and his tyrant had a fearful row. He com- 
manded her never to allow a man inside the 
premises when he was away, and, though 
brought home drunk that awful night, furiously 
ordered the Frenchman out, and might have 
assaulted them had not Bridget lassoed him 
with a chloroformed towel. That was the last 
he knew until another day. Lascelles, Philippes, 
and she, Mrs. Dawson, had already drunk a 
bottle of champagne when interrupted by Doyle’s 
coming. Lascelles was tipsy, had snatched his 
pistol and flred a shot to frighten Doyle, but had 
only enraged him, and then he had to run for 
his cab. He was bundled in and Doyle disposed 
of. It was only three blocks down to Beau 
Bivage, and thither Mike drove them in all the 
storm. She did not know at the time of 
Waring’s being in the cab. In less than flfteen 


WARING^S PERIL. 


223 


minutes Mike was back and called excitedly for 
Bridget; had a hurried consultation with her; 
she seized a waterproof and ran out with him, 
but darted back and took the bottle of chloro- 
form she had used on her husband, now lying 
limp and senseless on a sofa below, and then she 
disappeared. When half an hour passed and 
Lascelles failed to return with them, bringing 
certain papers of which he’d been speaking to 
Philippes, the latter declared there must be 
something wrong, and went out to reconnoitre 
despite the storm. He could see nothing. It 
was after midnight when Mrs. Doyle came rush- 
ing in, gasping, all out of breath along of 
the storm,” she said. She had been down the 
levee with Mike to find a cushion and lap-robe 
he dropped and couldn’t afford to lose. They 
never could have found it at all “ but for ould 
Lascelles lending them a lantern.” He wanted 
Mike to bring down two bottles of champagne 
he’d left here, but it was storming so that he 
would not venture again, and Lieutenant Wa- 
ring, she said, was going to spend the night 
with Lascelles at Beau Kivage : Mike couldn’t 
drive any further down towards the barracks. 
Lascelles sent word to Philippes that he’d bring 


224 


WARING^S PERIL, 


up the papers first thing in the morning, if the 
storm lulled, and Philippes went out indignant 
at all the time lost, but Mike swore he’d not 
drive down again for a fortune. So the French- 
man got into the cab and went up with him to 
town. The moment he was gone Mrs. Dojle 
declared she was dead tired, used up, and drank 
huge goblets of the wine until she reeled off to 
her room, leaving an apron behind. Then Mrs. 
Dawson went to her own room, after putting out 
the lights, and when, two days later, she heard 
the awful news of the murder, knowing that 
investigation would follow and she and her sins 
be brought to light, she fied, for she had enough 
of his money in her possession, and poor de- 
mented Dawson, finding her gone, followed. 

Philippes’s story corroborated this in every 
particular. The last he saw of the cab or of 
the cabman was near the house of the hook- 
and-ladder company east of the French Market. 
The driver there said his horse was dead heat 
and could do no more, so Philippes went into 
the market, succeeded in getting another cab by 
paying a big price, slept at Cassidy’s, waited all 
the morning about Lascelles’s place, and finally, 
having to return to the Northeast at once, he 


WARINQ'S PERIL. 


225 


took the evening train on the Jackson road and 
never heard of the murder until ten days after. 
He was amazed at his arrest. 

And then came before his examiners a mere 
physical wreck, — the shadow of his former self, 
— caught at the high tide of a career of crime 
and debauchery, a much less bulky party than 
the truculent Jehu of Madame Lascelles’s cab, 
yet no less important a witness than that same 
driver. He was accompanied by a priest. He 
had been brought hither in an ambulance from 
the Hotel-Dieu, where he had been traced several 
days before and found almost at death’s door. 
His confession was most important of all. He 
had struck Lieutenant Waring as that officer 
turned away from Lascelles’s gate, intending only 
to down and then kick and hammer him, hut he 
had struck with a lead-loaded rubber club, and 
he was horrified to see him drop like one dead. 
Then he lost his nerve and drove furiously back 
for Bridget. Together they returned, and found 
Waring lying there as he had left him on the 
dripping banquette. You’ve killed him, Mike. 
There’s only one thing to do,” she said : “ take 
his watch and everything valuable he has, and 
we’ll throw him over on the levee.” She herself 
V 


226 


WARING^S PERIL. 


took the knife from his overcoat-pocket, lest 
he should recover suddenly, and then, said the 
driver, even as we were bending over him 
there came a sudden flash of lightning, and 
there was Lascelles bending over us, demanding 
to know what it meant. Then like another flash 
he seemed to realize what was up, sprang back, 
and drew pistol. He had caught us in the act. 
There was nothing else to do ; we both sprang 
upon him. He fired, and hit me, but only in 
the arm, and before he could pull trigger again 
we both grappled him. I seized his gun, Bridget 
his throat, but he screamed and fought like a 
tiger, then wilted all of a sudden. I was scared 
and helpless, but she had her wits about her, 
and told me what to do. The lieutenant began 
to gasp and revive just then, so she soaked the 
handkerchief in chloroform and placed it over 
his mouth, and together we lifted him into the 
cab. Then we raised Lascelles and carried him 
in and laid him on his sofa, for he had left the 
door open and the lamp on the table. Bridget 
had been there before, and knew all about the 
house. We set the pistol back in his hand, but 
couldn’t make the fingers grasp it. We ran- 
sacked the desk and got what money there was, 


WAKING'S PERIL. 


227 


locked and bolted the doors, and climbed out of 
the side window, under which she dropped the 
knife among the bushes. ‘ They’ll never suspect 
us in the world, Mike,’ she said. ‘ It’s the lieu- 
tenant’s knife that did it, and, as he was going 
to fight him anyhow, he’ll get the credit of it 
all.’ Then we drove up the levee, put Waring 
ill Anatole’s boat, sculls and all, and shoved him 
oft*. ‘ I’ll muzzle Jim,’ she said. ‘ I’ll make him 
believe ’twas he that did it when he was drunk.’ 
She took most of the money, and the watch and 
ring. She said she could hide them until they’d 
be needed. Then I drove Philippes up to town 
until I began to get so sick and faint I could do 
no more. I turned the cab loose and got away 
to a house where I knew they’d take care of me, 
and from there, when my money was gone, they 
sent me to the hospital, thinking I was dying. 
I swear to God I never meant to more than get 
square with the lieutenant. I never struck Las- 
celles at all ; ’twas she who drove the knife into 
his heart.” 

Then, exhausted, he was led into an adjoining 
room, and Mrs. Doyle was marched in, the pic- 
ture of injured Irish innocence. For ten minutes, 
with wonderful effrontery and nerve, she denied 


228 


WARINO^S PERIL. 


all personal participation in the crime, and faced 
her inquisitors with brazen calm. Then the 
chief quietly turned and signalled. An officer 
led forward from one side the wreck of a cab- 
man, supported by the priest ; a door opened on 
the other, and, escorted by another policeman, 
Mrs. Dawson re-entered, holding in her hands 
outstretched a gingham apron on which were 
two deep stains the shape and size of a long, 
straight-bladed, two-edged knife. It was the 
apron that Bridget Doyle had worn that fatal 
night. One quick, furtive look at that, one 
glance at her trembling, shrinking, co^vering 
kinsman, and, with an Irish howl of despair, a 
loud wail of “Mike, Mike, youVe sworn your 
sister’s life away!” she threw herself upon the 
floor, tearing madly at her hair. And so ended 
the mystery of Beau Eivage. 

There was silence a moment in Cram’s pretty 
parlor when the captain had finished his story. 
Waring was the first to speak : 

“ There is one point I wish they’d clear up.” 

“ What’s that ?” said Cram. 

“ Who’s got Merton’s watch ?” 

“ Oh, by Jove ! I quite forgot. It’s all right, 
W aring. Anatole’s place was ‘ pulled’ last night, 


WARING^S PERIL. 229 

and he had her valuables all done up in a box. 
‘ To pay for his boat/ he said.” 

* * * 5lc :J: :|c 

A quarter of a century has passed away since 
the scarlet plumes of Light Battery X” were 
last seen dancing along the levee below Xew 
Orleans. Beau Bivage, old and moss-grown at 
the close of the war, fell into rapid decline after 
the tragedy of that April night. Heavily mort- 
gaged, the property passed into other hands, but 
for years never found a tenant. Far and near 
the negroes spoke of the homestead as haunted, 
and none of their race could be induced to set 
foot within its gates. One night the sentry at 
the guard-house saw sudden light on the west- 
ward sky, and then a column of flame. Again 
the fire-alarm resounded among the echoing 
walls of the barracks; but when the soldiers 
reached the scene, a seething ruin was all that 
was left of the old Southern home. Somebody 
sent Cram a marked copy of a Hew Orleans 
paper, and in their cosey quarters at Fort Ham- 
ilton the captain read it aloud to his devoted 
Hell : The old house has been vacant, an object 
of almost superstitious dread to the neighbor- 
hood,”' said the Times, “ever since the tragic 
20 


23P 


WARING^S PERIL. 


death of Armand Lascelles in the spring of 1808. 
In police annals the affair was remarkable be- 
cause of the extraordinary chain of circumstan- 
tial evidence which for a time seemed to fasten 
the murder upon an officer of the army then 
stationed at Jackson Barracks, but whose inno- 
cence was triumphantly established. Madame 
Lascelles, it is understood, is now educating her 
daughter in Paris, whither she removed imme- 
diately after her marriage a few months ago to 
Captain Philippe Lascelles, formerly of the Con- 
federate army, a younger brother of her first 
husband.’’ 

“Well,” said Cram, “I’ll have to send that to 
Waring. They’re in Vienna by this time, I sup- 
pose. Look here, l^Tell; how was it that when 
we fellows were fretting about Waring’s atten- 
tions to Madame, you should have been so 
serenely superior to it all, even when, as I know, 
the stories reached you ?” 

“ Ah, 'Ned, I knew a story worth two of those. 
He was in love with Hatalie Maitland all the 
time.” 


THE END. 












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